Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas

The Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH – https://www.forth.gr/en/home/) was founded in 1983. It is the premier multidisciplinary research institution in Greece with well-organized facilities, highly qualified personnel and a reputation as a top-level research institution worldwide. FORTH joins the EUCAIM initiative with two groups. The Computational Medicine Laboratory (CBML – (https://www.ics.forth.gr/cbml) of the Institute of Computer Science, Coordinator also of the ProCAncer-I project (https://www.procancer-i.eu/) and the Unit of Medical Technology and Intelligent Information Systems (Medlab – https://medlab.cc.uoi.gr/) of the BioMedical Research Institute.

Both laboratories participating in EUCAIM have established a tradition of internationally acknowledged excellence in conducting high‐level R&D work and in developing innovative computer methods and tools in the area of medical and biomedical engineering and informatics, e‐health, m‐Health, and medical imaging. The laboratories are staffed with specialised scientific and technical personnel and possess state of-the-art equipment. Activities cover important research and development areas, taking into consideration new perspectives, emerging fields of research and technological challenges worldwide.

The Unit of Medical Technology and Intelligent Information Systems (Medlab) is a highly innovative and self-contained research unit active in the fields of Biomedical Engineering and the development of Intelligent Information systems. It has an internationally acknowledged excellence in conducting high quality scientific research and developing innovative Information Technology (IT) applications, products and services. Most of the Unit activities are based on international collaborations in the framework of European and Nationally funded projects. MedLab’s research activities cover a variety of subjects and they are classified into the following domains: Multiscale modelling of human organs, biomedical engineering, processing and analysis of big datasets with medical data, wearable systems for monitoring and management of chronic diseases and intelligent information systems. Medlab has been the technical manager of several successful European Projects. Currently, the Unit is the Coordinator in the Horizon 2020 projects INSILC, TAXINOMISIS, HOLOBALANCE.

The Computational BioMedicine Laboratory (CBML) is a multidisciplinary research team comprising Engineering, Radiology and Oncology Professors, Senior Researchers, Post-Docs and PhD students dedicated in developing novel ICT and AI technologies in the wider context of precision medicine. The lab has achieved an impressive track record in project participation and technology innovation related to, amongst others, a) the effective integration, management and querying of multi-level biomedical and health data for supporting clinical trials based on integrative/multi-level data, b) the semantic interoperability of biomedical data tools and models for enhancing biomedical knowledge discovery and AI modelling, c) the understanding of the genetical and evolutionary basis of diseases and the interplay between random stochastic processes and adaptive forces that affect the genetical state of populations or species through high-throughput data analysis of biological organization, d) the optimization of diagnosis and treatment through the use of novel medical imaging analysis tools and predictive models, and e) the advancement of medical image analysis through novel image-based modelling and radiogenomics approaches complemented by the development of complex machine learning statistical predictive modelling frameworks in order to facilitate the clinicians in diagnosis and treatment planning.

Role of institution in the project

FORTH Co-Leads WP5. It is also leading the activities in developing guidelines for data federation, processing, management and node technical set up (T5.1) and T5.2.1 – Definition of a Common Data Model and hyper – ontology for data interoperability in EUCAIM.

Also, FORTH is a contributor to T6.2, providing to the EUCAIM analysis toolbox tools for feature extraction, radiomics calculation  and segmentation, dimensionality reduction and feature selection, and ML based predictive models for Prostate Cancer clinical unmet needs.

FORTH is also contributing to the development of the required core services of the platform (T4.2), with emphasis on Traceability Services.

Prof. Manolis Tsiknakis

Prof Manolis Tsiknakis (M): Professor of Biomedical Informatics at the Electrical, and Computer Engineering Department of the Hellenic Mediterranean University and an Affiliated researcher at the Computational Biomedicine Laboratory of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH). He has been the scientific coordinator or the technical leader of several large, EU-funded collaborative projects. Currently, he is coordinating the ProCAncer-I project (https://www.procancer-i.eu/) an ambitious effort focused on developing an AI Platform integrating imaging data and models, supporting precision care through prostate cancer’s continuum. He was an eEurope/eHealth award winner in 2003 and the recipient of FORTH’s award for most innovative applied research in 2004. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics and an Editorial Board member of the European Biomedical Informatics Journal. He has also served in many important conferences in the field of biomedical informatics and eHealth as a member of the scientific committee and/or technical committees. His main areas of expertise include biomedical informatics and engineering, approaches for semantic health data integration and interoperability of health information systems; affective computing; ubiquitous sensor-based human behaviour modelling, activity and context recognition; and smart eHealth and mHealth service platforms.

Prof. Kostas Marias

Prof Kostas Marias (M) is Professor in Medical Image Processing at the Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the Hellenic Mediterranean University in Greece and is the head and founder of the Computational Biomedicine Laboratory at FORTH-ICS. He served as Principal Researcher at the Institute of Computer Science of the Foundation for Research & Technology Hellas since 2006. During 2003-2006 as Associated Researcher at FORTH-ICS. He received his PhD in Medical Image Analysis and Medical Physics from UCL Royal Free & University College Medical School working jointly with the University of Oxford, UK. He has coordinated two EC projects on cancer modelling (ContraCancrum and TUMOR projects), and has actively participated in many EC funded projects developing ICT technology focusing on cancer image analysis. He has served in many important IEEE conferences in the field of biomedical informatics and imaging such as EMBC, BIBE and IST either as member of the scientific committee, organising committee, in special sessions, program co-chair, etc. He is co-author of more than 300 papers in international journals, books and conference proceedings focusing on medical image processing and analysis, biomedical informatics, image-based modelling and Radiomics/deep learning medical imaging applications.

Dr. Nikolaos Tachos

Dr. Nikolaos Tachos (M) has received his Diploma degree in Mechanical Engineering and PhD from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics, University of Patras. He is currently a senior researcher in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of University of Ioannina and in the Foundation for Research and Technology –Hellas / Biomedical Research Institute (FORTH/BRI). Nikolaos Tachos has been involved in several National and International projects related to computational modelling in the field of Biomedical Engineering. He is a project manager in EU funded and National funded research projects related on in-silico clinical trials platforms, digitally enabled adaptive solutions, big data and data analytics.

Dr. Haridimos Kondylakis

Dr. Haridimos Kondylakis (Μ) is a Collaborating Researcher with the CBML, FORTH. He is also a visiting lecturer at the Computer Science Department, University of Crete and at the Department of Electric and Computer Engineering, at Hellenic University of Crete, teaching lessons related to semantic harmonization, big data management and AI. He holds a Ph.D and a M.Sc. in Computer Science from University of Crete. His research interests include data harmonization and integration, big data infrastructures and personal health systems. In the past he has participated in more than 25 EU research projects with a leading role in many of them. He is the leader of the AI for Health Imaging (AI4HI) EU working group on Data Management. He has more than 210 publications in premier international conferences and journals like JBI, JMIR, IJMI, VLDB, SIGMOD.

Join the EUCAIM Consortium

Open Call for New Beneficiaries

We’re inviting new partners to enhance our pan-European infrastructure for cancer images and artificial intelligence.

Whether you’re a data holder with valuable cancer images or an innovator developing AI tools for precision medicine, this is your chance to contribute to a groundbreaking project.

Apply by 10 June 2024!

Open Call Webinar

We recently hosted a webinar with more details for prospective applicants to the open call. A recording is available.

Our open Call for new collaborators
launches in April 2024

Opportunities for data holders & AI developers to contribute await! Let‘s join forces to enhance cancer diagnosis and treatment

Be the first to know and apply!

SAVE THE DATE
March 14, 10:00-11:30 aM CET

DISCOVER THE CANCER IMAGE EUROPE PLATFORM

TECHNICAL DEMONSTRATION WEBINAR

Explore the potential for AI-driven cancer care advancements!
Learn how to access and utilize our federated cancer image repository. The webinar is for AI Innovators & Data Providers interested in the platform and will feature an introduction to EUCAIM & Cancer Image Europe and a demonstration of data exploration & access.

Survey Invitation

Join Leading Experts In Shaping AI In Cancer

EUCAIM is looking for your feedback! We have recently published a Stakeholder Survey in order to reach out to potential end-users and stakeholders. We believe that your insights could significantly contribute to understanding the expectations of potential users and identifying the essential aspects that stakeholders find crucial for future engagement and collaboration with the platform.

Therefore, we would like to invite you to participate in the Stakeholder Survey about the Cancer Image Europe platform.

Completing the survey will take approximately 10 minutes. Your participation is crucial to the success of this project, and we deeply appreciate your expertise in shaping the future of cancer imaging and treatment.