Digital health
From May 13 to 17, 2019, a week of lectures and conferences entitled “Neurosciences, neuro-oncology and digital” took place at TELECOM Nancy, a great school of engineers in computer science and digital sciences of Lorraine INP – University of Lorraine.
Two other editions followed: from January 27 to 31, 2020 and from January 25 to 29, 2021.
Feedback on the “Neurosciences, neuro-oncology and digital” week of 2019
This training, delivered by doctors and researchers who are experts in the brain and its tumors as well as digital medical imaging, was aimed at TELECOM Nancy engineering students in the “Artificial Intelligence and Mass of Data” deepening (course Biomedical) and to medical students as well as to students of Télécom Physique Strasbourg. It is part of the Digital Health project carried by TELECOM Nancy in the Pacte grandes écoles of the Grand Est Region and the IMT Grand Est in partnership with the CRAN, IECL, the CHRU of Nancy, the Faculty of Medicine de Nancy, the Nancy School of Surgery and the ARTC.
During this week of training, students were able to acquire basic knowledge about the brain, its main pathologies and their treatments. At the same time, through theoretical training and experimentation, they learned to implement the digital tools necessary for the collection and analysis of data which ultimately allow the doctor to define the best strategy for the treatment of the patient. For example, they segmented brain tumors and manipulated a BrainMapper, software developed by students from TELECOM Nancy making it possible to map the brain.
E-health is one of the areas of excellence of TELECOM Nancy, which has been developing this theme for many years under the leadership of Jean-Marie Moureaux, Deputy Director, in particular within the framework of our living lab “PROMETEE” dedicated to images and medical video.
Interview with Jean-Marie Moureaux, Deputy Director of TELECOM Nancy
Jean-Marie Moureaux, you are the co-organizer of this “Neurosciences, neuro-oncology and digital” week, can you tell us why this training was organized and what were the objectives?
A few years ago, as part of my research activities at CRAN, I co-built, with Prof. Luc Taillandier (CHRU-CRAN), a multidisciplinary team around brain tumors with doctors (Dr Marie Blonski and Dr Fabien Rech, CHRU-CRAN) and future doctors (Tiphaine Obara), researchers in image processing (Yann Gaudeau, University of Strasbourg, CRAN) and in mathematics (Sophie Mézières, IECL), as well as engineers in digital sciences (Amine Chaabouni, TELECOM Nancy). This team has continued to grow by also welcoming doctoral students from CRAN (Meriem Ben Abdallah then Cyril Brzenczek). We quickly realized the strength of this multidisciplinarity and the need to include skills in both research and IT development. Thus, engineering students from TELECOM Nancy are regularly involved in our projects and allow the development of tools directly resulting from our research. The students’ constant interest in this type of project and in the health sector naturally led us to imagine this new educational format and to offer it to future engineers and doctors at the University of Lorraine.
The objective of the week was to understand neurosciences and neuro-oncology through the digital prism in the form of conferences and workshops around the segmentation of brain tumors and artificial intelligence applied to real databases. anonymized to bring out new questions and new perspectives in the treatment of this type of tumor.
Why is it important for there to be collaboration between the medical world and the digital world?
The border between the two areas is increasingly porous; medicine is now largely digitized. The development of powerful software tools as well as that of Artificial Intelligence constitute a revolution in the follow-up, the treatment, including the surgery and the diagnosis of pathologies (in particular those of the brain).
Doctors need the help provided by digital sciences to increase their knowledge and digital engineers and researchers are increasingly interested in the field of health in order to put their innovations at the service of the common good and give sense to computing.
Today, multidisciplinarity is a force in all areas and most often leads to innovative solutions.
What are the students’ feedback on this week of training?
A survey was carried out among students and their feedback is very positive!
The student-engineer / medical student pairs were particularly appreciated. The complementarity of the profiles resulted in very rich discussions which revealed new questions and new avenues on the treatment of brain tumors. The objective described was achieved and even exceeded from the point of view of the doctors who took part in this adventure.
Will there be a sequel?
In view of this success, the “Neurosciences, Neuro-oncology and Digital” week will undoubtedly be repeated in 2020. New challenges will be offered to students and already new medical specialties (nuclear medicine in particular), still in the field of the brain, wish to be associated with the next edition.
At the same time, as part of the Digital Health project carried by TELECOM Nancy in the Grand Est Region Pact, another thematic week is planned for 2020 this time around video and ENT surgical simulation.
Partners of the Neurosciences, Neuro-oncology and Digital Week:
University of Lorraine, Lorraine INP, IMT Grand Est, Grand Est Region, CNRS, TELECOM Nancy, Nancy Faculty of Medicine, Nancy CHRU, CRAN, Elie Cartan Institute, ARTC, Nancy School of Surgery.
List of speakers:
• Prof. Luc TAILLANDIER, PUPH, CHRU de Nancy (Head and Neck Pole – Neurology Department – Neurooncology unit coordinator), CRAN (BioSIS Dept)
• Dr Marie BLONSKI, CHRU de Nancy (Head and Neck Pole – Neuro-oncology Department), CRAN (BioSIS Dept)
• Dr Fabien RECH, CHRU de Nancy (Head and Neck Department – Neurosurgery Department), CRAN (BioSIS Dept)
• Prof. René ANXIONNAT, PUPH, CHRU de Nancy (Department of Neuroradiology)
• Dr Antoine VERGER, CHRU de Nancy (Department of Nuclear Medicine)
• Dr Celso POUGET, CHRU de Nancy (Pathological Anatomy Department)
• Prof. Jean-Marie MOUREAUX, teacher at TELECOM Nancy (Deputy Director), researcher at CRAN (Dept BioSIS)
• Dr Sophie MÉZIÈRES, teacher at IUT Nancy Charlemagne, researcher at IECL (INRIA BIGS team)
• Cyril BRZENCZEK, doctoral student at CRAN (BioSIS Dept)
• Thomas BAGREL, 1st year apprentice student at TELECOM Nancy
Download the 2019 event flyer.
To read: Article published in Est Républicain on May 21, 2019
