Infosys and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign announce partnership in precision medicine

Digital services and consulting major Infosys has announced a strategic partnership with University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to develop new technologies and systems in precision medicine.

Through this partnership, Infosys also becomes a member of the Centre for Computational Biotechnology and Genomic Medicine (CCBGM).

The adoption of new technologies by healthcare companies has significant benefits, including allowing caregivers to predict patients' diseases and control prohibitive healthcare costs, in turn benefiting both patients and healthcare companies.

This partnership will combine Infosys' strength in advanced machine learning, its artificial intelligence capabilities through the Infosys Nia platform, with UIUC's expertise in computing systems, bioinformatics and genomic applications, to improve preventive care and enhance predictability of treatment outcomes of potential diseases.

"The partnership between Infosys and UIUC along with our membership in CCBGM opens up a lot of potential for Infosys' work in the healthcare industry," said Venky Ananth, Senior Vice President and Head of Healthcare at Infosys.

"Not only do we have an opportunity to develop technologies and solutions that can improve and enhance patient care and management, but we also get a chance to collaborate with some of the finest minds on the new frontiers of healthcare innovation," he said in a statement.

Prof Ravishankar K Iyer, Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Illinois, said the future of precision medicine, which allows tailoring diagnosis and treatment to each patient in order to optimise outcome, is dependent on the ability to jointly analyse large datasets of heterogeneous biological (genomic, metabolic and neuroimaging) and clinical measures while incorporating key clinical domain knowledge.

"This is a complex challenge and will require innovations in both data-driven analytics and system design to succeed," he said.