The Multisectoral Association of Electronics, Information and Communication Technologies, Telecommunications and Digital Content Companies (AMETIC) has awarded the DELFOS project within the AI SUMMIT 2024 event, which brought together the main professionals of the sector to generate business opportunities around Artificial Intelligence (AI) that promote innovation, competitiveness and quality employment.
The DELFOS project is a project carried out by the company G7 Innovations Solutions SL in collaboration with the University of Seville and the Institute for the Study of the Biology of Human Reproduction (INEBIR). It is a multidisciplinary project (comprised of technologists,
This project involves researchers in software engineering and specialist healthcare professionals and is applied to the field of preventive healthcare with the aim of advancing the digital transformation of healthcare organizations, particularly those specializing in assisted reproduction, where the demand for genetic counseling services exceeds the number of qualified geneticists. In fact, the demand for these services is expected to increase considerably in the future with the rise of personalized medicine trials.
The overall objective of the project is the creation of an expert software system based on Big Data technologies and artificial intelligence techniques (specifically Machine Learning) for
Discovering pathologies through the analysis of electronic health records obtained from patient medical histories, whose data currently lacks known correlation and is therefore not adequately assessed during Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) processes or treatments. Therefore, the first aspect of this system is to correlate patient data variables whose relationships are currently unknown. Secondly, integrating these variables with exome sequencing data (genes) from patients will provide valuable insights into patient management, leading to greater reproductive success in treatments. Similarly, this expert system aims to enhance the genetic counseling services of any healthcare organization by providing healthcare professionals with a decision-support tool for detecting genetic risk factors; all of this is achieved through the integration of a highly sensitive screening and early warning model.
Therefore, the objectives to be developed on the platform are:
— Discovering data from patients' medical history that helps increase the reproductive success of treatments.
-Based on the results of diagnostic tests, determine if there is a risk that a
an individual or their offspring may develop hereditary diseases.
⎯ Real-time notification of alerts in case of risk situations.
— To support decision-making and validate the actions of professionals.
— Transferability and integration with different healthcare organizations for use in practice
assisted reproduction treatment clinic.
INEBIR has actively collaborated in the development and piloting of the DELFOS project. During the process, the professional experience of Dr. José Manuel Navarro Pando, medical director of INEBIR, and of the Dr. Ana Teresa Marcos, head of the Genetics Unit at INEBIR. Both experts have collaborated in the design and validation of the artificial intelligence program for two predictive models generated for male infertility and endometriosis.
The predictive models were obtained using anonymized electronic health records stored in the IMEDEA system under data protection laws. Thanks to this, and the use of real patient cases from the clinical pilot phase of the application, two scientific articles (in collaboration with the University of Seville) have been published, corresponding to the diseases mentioned above, analyzing the results obtained from the predictions made in these real cases.