Fraunhofer Center for Digital Diagnostics ZDDProject networking symposium and progress report
Current progress at the Fraunhofer Center for Digital Diagnostics ZDD
The Fraunhofer Center for Digital Diagnostics ZDD, which is funded by the German federal government and the state of Brandenburg, held a symposium at the Fraunhofer IZI in Leipzig in early December 2022. The aim of the networking event was to inform the participating project partners and the board of directors of the ZDD about the current status of the ongoing projects as well as the planned activities.
The Center for Digital Diagnostics develops patient-oriented diagnostic solutions embedded in digital ecosystems - to improve healthcare in rural areas. In addition to developing concrete technologies and exemplary solutions, the ZDD further strengthens the interdisciplinary competencies of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in the field of "Digital Diagnostics". As a cross-institute initiative, the ZDD bundles the competencies of various Fraunhofer institutes in the fields of bioanalytics, digitization and artificial intelligence.
Through internal Fraunhofer funding, the ZDD is currently supporting four priority projects with a term of three years:
- »KISMADI« – intelligent, demand-oriented wound care for chronically ill patients
- »Neighborhood Diagnostics« – rethinking patient-oriented diagnostics for large regions
- »RespiVir« – Next-generation virus testing for on-demand diagnosis and outbreak containment
- »SODIAPH« – Analysis and optimization of digital ecosystems in patient care.
The symposium served to network the project groups in order to strengthen synergies between the ongoing projects. In addition, the progress of both the four priority projects and eight other early-stage projects was reviewed by the ZDD Board of Directors. In such early-stage projects, for example, researchers are working on the development of a digital home-use testing system to screen breast milk for adequate supply of critical nutrients in vegan and vegetarian diets. Another project involves continuous, fully automated monitoring of the epidemiological situation during virus outbreaks. The use of breath analysis in the field of near-patient diagnostics is also the subject of ZDD early-stage projects.
In addition to networking and peer review, the key points of the second project call of the Fraunhofer Center for Digital Diagnostics, the office of which is based at the Fraunhofer Institute IZI-BB, were also discussed during the symposium. This new call for proposals is expected at the end of January 2023. The long-term goal of the ZDD is to develop technologies and solutions in collaboration with industry and healthcare providers that improve medical care, especially in large regions, and promote digitization in healthcare.