05 May 2011: Launch of the IT Future of Medicine Pilot

Launch of IT Future of Medicine (ITFoM)

Before the "fet11 - The European Future Technologies Conference and Exhibition" started in the morning of May 4th the coordinators of the  six shortlisted flagship pilot initiatives and the respective presidents of their research organisations/universities were invited to a VIP
dinner with Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for the European Digital  Agenda. On the following day the IT Future of Medicine initiative together with the other five selected pilots were officially launched by Neelie Kroes.

During this ceremony Hans Lehrach, coordinator of ITFoM, presented the Objectives and the Vision of our project to the audience. The whole morning
session was moderated by Clive Cookson, Science Editor of the Financial Times, whom we met the other day for an one hour fruitful discussion
about the "Virtual Patient" and the impact of our project on the Medicine of the Future and its implications for future innovation in the ICT
sector. In the afternoon of May 5th we presented in detail ITFoM during a 90 minute flagship pilot session.

Hans Lehrach (Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany), Peter Boyle (International Prevention Research Institute, Lyon, France), Kurt Zatloukal (Medical University of Graz, Austria), Tim Hubbard (Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK), Hans Westerhoff (University of Manchester, UK),
and Angela Brand (Maastricht University, The Netherlands) presented the different aspects of ITFoM. One major outcome of the conference was
the very clear statement from Neelie Kroes that out of the six shortlisted pilot initiatives two project will be launched as full FET
Flagship Initiatives in 2013.