The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF) and Intel Corporation announced today a collaboration aimed at improving research and treatment for Parkinson's disease -- a neurodegenerative brain disease second only to Alzheimer's in worldwide prevalence. The collaboration includes a multiphase research study using a new big data analytics platform that detects patterns in participant data collected from wearable technologies used to monitor symptoms. This effort is an important step in enabling researchers and physicians to measure progression of the disease and to speed progress toward breakthroughs in drug development.

Anonymous patient data is aggregated and analyzed for new insight into Parkinson's disease via a new partnership between Intel and the Michael J. Fox Foundation

The potential to collect and analyze data from thousands of individuals on measurable features of Parkinson's, such as slowness of movement, tremor and sleep quality, could enable researchers to assemble a better picture of the clinical progression of Parkinson's and track its relationship to molecular changes. Wearables can unobtrusively gather and transmit objective, experiential data in real time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. With this approach, researchers could go from looking at a very small number of data points and burdensome pencil-and-paper patient diaries collected sporadically to analyzing hundreds of readings per second from thousands of patients and attaining a critical mass of data to detect patterns and make new discoveries.

MJFF and Intel share a commitment to increasing the rate of progress made possible by open access to data. The organizations aim to share data with the greater Parkinson's community of physicians and researchers as well as invite them to submit their own de-identified patient and subject data for analysis. Teams may also choose to contribute de-identified patient data for inclusion in broader, population-scale studies.

http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-...13-910435.html