BioMIMs is an informatics system that manages and “integrates” different complex clinical data – from MRI to genetic data, from x-rays to the family tree – enabling to select “homogeneous” patients amongst those affected by genetic diseases of the musculoskeletal system and to identify prognostic factors, at the bases of research for future cures.

For the development of BioMIMs the Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institute in Bologna was awarded by the Computerworld Honour Program, an Institution that comprises the principle companies in informatics, including Microsoft and Apple, that every year assigns awards to those, in the International setting, who distinguish themselves in the use of informatics for social progress. Rizzoli is the only Italian corporation awarded in the “Health” category.

Luca Sangiorgi, responsible for the CLIBI Laboratory (Clinical Bioinformatics) and the Rizzoli Medical Genetics, that developed BioMIMs in collaboration with IBM Israel, received the prize during a ceremony held at the US Ministry of Industry in Washington

BioMIMs prototype opens the road to a new generation of software: first of a kind, is the label by which IMB identifies highly innovative research with these characteristics and its final product.

Besides the capacity of “keeping together” in a coherent analysis all data concerning the patient and to compare them with a set of other patients, BioMIMs system also allows specialists to work in a network, with the aim of avoiding patients to physically move from one place to another: the program was tested and used in the Emilia-Romagna region Hub and Spoke network for rare skeletal diseases.

BioMIMs project was developed by Rizzoli Medical Genetics and CLIBI Laboratory researchers together with IBM Research Lab as a result of an Agreement Protocol between the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Israeli Ministry of Innovation and Development.