Apple wants to collect your DNA and deliver it to your iPhone
Apple has launched its ResearchKit development program as an open source project, providing medical researchers an effective way to develop studies, which use smartphones to gather data from users. By creating the technology open source, Apple has also opened it up to work from other companies and research organizations. ResearchKit enables the iOS app to turn out to be a powerful tool for medical research. It can easily create real-time dynamic tasks, visual consent flows, and surveys using a range of customizable modules. ResearchKit permits researchers and developers to create dominant apps for medical research. Since ResearchKit works flawlessly with HealthKit, researchers can access even more appropriate data for their studies such as daily step counts, heart rate and calorie use. At its media event, Apple announced a new platform to revolutionize the medical research industry, in expectations of improving communication amongst researchers, doctors, and patients which is named as "ResearchKit." ResearchKit has been designed with proper regards to preserve the privacy of user’s information. The user may choose whatever studies he wants to join, he is in control of the information he has provided to the apps and he can see the data he is sharing. The ResearchKit framework offers a pre-built user interface for surveys that can be presented modally on an iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad. A job in the ResearchKit framework holds a set of steps to present to the user. Everything, whether it is a consent process, a survey, or lively task, is represented as a task and the task can be controlled with a task view controller.Familiarity with HealthKit
The company has introduced HealthKit with iOS 8, a dominant tool that permits health, well-being, and fitness apps on the iPhone to work all together. ResearchKit performs work hand-in-hand with HealthKit. Above 900 apps have already been established using HealthKit, transmuting how we track, interact, manage with our health. With the consent of a user, ResearchKit can flawlessly tap into the pond of useful data produced by HealthKit such as recording number of steps walked daily, calorie burnt and the heart rate etc., consequently making it available to the medical researchers. Apple's ResearchKit software platform is so designed, which let medical researchers make iPhone apps for their studies that will give assistance to them while recruiting applicants. Recruiting patients can be considered as one of the most difficult steps in study, therefore ResearchKit could be a noteworthy boon to medical research. The company has fortified users to continue building out whatever’s possible in ResearchKit and it is even probable that people could fork the technology for any other mobile platforms if they are required to. iPhones now gather data about certain phases of a person's health. But for this latest tool, Apple has been working with researchers around the world, from Stanford to Oxford and even universities in China, to cultivate new applications as well as frameworks to help accommodate patients, doctors, as well as researchers.Development of the Technology
For the development of ResearchKit, Apple has consulted several leading medical institutions and foundations around the globe to reimaging how medical research is executed. The experiences and insights of the personalities of these institutions helped Apple in creating such a software framework which fulfills the need of modern medical researchers. LifeMap Solutions as well as the Icahn School were one of the first five groups, which were nominated by Apple Inc. to construct an app for Apple’s ResearchKit for the iPhone, in accordance with the announcement done by Apple on March 9, 2015. LifeMap solutions is emerging and launching (mHealth) mobile apps, in partnership with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Corey Bridges, CEO of LifeMap Solutions says, “Being able to take someone through informed assent on a mobile device makes designing large studies easier” (Ross, 2015). Some of the early apps that use the ResearchKit framework are also open source, which are ready to be utilized as a sample code or to bootstrap the project. The five ResearchKit apps, which the Apple has announced are currently featured at topmost position of the App Store. These apps are being utilized to collect data to study, a range of conditions, comprising Asthma, Diabetes, Parkinson's disease, as well as Breast Cancer. What a person need is just to sign up for studies through these apps. The person will be asked to complete certain activities. For example: In the Parkinson's app, the patients can tap two points repetitively to assess the magnitude of tremors. This will offer doctors a lot of reliable data to proceed further their own research.Adaptability
The ResearchKit framework doesn’t take account of a data management solution. The framework can be used with a data management solution according to the choice. While selecting a backend service for the research application, take into consideration the provider’s data privacy as well as security practices. ResearchKit uses visual consent templates, which are customizable, so as to elucidate the details of the study and acquire a signature from the applicant. Using ResearchKit, surveys for modal presentation can be made on an iOS device. It uses active tasks for bidding users to execute activities under the conditions, which are semi-controlled, along with iPhone sensors to gather data. Some studies may require data that is beyond scope of survey questions or process of passive data gathering capabilities available through the use of the HealthKit and CoreMotion APIs while programming for iOS. ResearchKit's active tasks request users to carry out several activities in semi-controlled conditions, while iPhone sensors collect data actively. |
| Apple's Research Kit is already helped medical institutes and universities collect clinical trial data from masses of iPhone users |
A Boon for Medical Aspirants
A number of the world’s leading medical institutions are presently using ResearchKit to gain further insight into some of the most serious diseases. ResearchKit makes recruiting simpler as well as it helps to make it easier for people to enroll and sign up for particular study, no issue where they live in the world. Medical researchers need lots of data. So far the most difficult challenge they will encounter today is recruiting applicants. Studies cannot generate, without large numbers, the robust data required to help them grow wide-range or individualized treatments. Medical researchers are performing some of the most essential work in the world. They are dedicated to making life-changing innovations which will benefit all of the people around the world. And for this cause, Apple has created ResearchKit, which makes it easy for the researchers as well as developers to construct apps that could transform medical studies, possibly transforming medicine forever. Till now, it has been essential for people will to take part in health study to travel to a hospital or the place of study, to complete tasks. With ResearchKit, the iPhone can be used to execute the activities as well as generate data being anywhere, as it provides source of data that is more objective than ever conceivable before. This is precious to the advancement of medical research and we all can have this.Infrequent data is another challenge for medical research. During a study, applicants may visit their research facility once a quarter to have some tests, however symptoms can recede and flow constantly. The extensive gaps between visits means researchers get an incomplete, thus imperfect, picture of their patients. With ResearchKit, applicants can use iPhone to collect data with much more regularity, daily or even hourly. And with advanced sensors such as an accelerometer, gyroscope and barometer, iPhone also offers ResearchKit apps with data that is objective, specific, accurate as well as incredibly precise. As health is essential to all, Apple has made ResearchKit an open source framework. Now anyone can offer a contribution to the next big medical development, irrespective of their platform. It is a very useful open source framework so the world can make the most of it. An open source framework is the dominant way to encourage researchers to work together and share their apps and techniques. Most importantly, it is the correct thing to do. “The research apps are easily downloadable and Apple audience is very huge, both are the benefits for recruitment. But those things can also be moral obligations as both Apple as well as ResearchKit researchers will have to make extra efforts to guarantee that applicants are eligible for studies such that they are well-informed about the risks as well as their data is secure. (Mazze, 2015)”
In the medical research world, data is never shared among other clinics or universities unless the applicants allows it or give consent, according to Michael McConnell, a cardiologist at Stanford University also the principal investigator behind "MyHeart Counts" app made with ResearchKit (White, 2015). As the ResearchKit is open-source, pharmaceutical companies might in fact prefer to directly get in on action. There may exist some problems if ResearchKit is considered as standard for the purpose of digital medicine. For one thing, people who have iPhones are supposed to be wealthier and diseases vary by income. In contrast, people with lower socioeconomic status are more probable to cultivate heart disease as compared with wealthier counterparts.
Facilities
Billions of people around the world keep an iPhone in their pocket. Every phone is equipped with powerful processors along with advanced sensors that can take measurements, track movement, and record information, all the functions that are absolutely perfect for medical studies. Researchers can easily create apps using the ResearchKit, taking advantage of iPhone features to collect new varieties of data on such scale had never been available before. Also, many of the apps built with ResearchKit allow tracking the data and possibly discovering connections between symptoms and daily activities like diet or exercise. ResearchKit has also consented researchers to perform with stacks of handwritten surveys along with lengthy forms and the pricey data entry as well as storage that come with them. By permitting applicants to execute tasks completely or submit surveys straight from the iPhone, ResearchKit lets doctors as well as researchers to devote more time carrying out actual research.Latest Advancements
The Research Kit software can also be helpful in storing users' DNA and utilize obtained data to assist them avoid medication which could yield allergic reactions, to assist people discover their relatives, and offer scientists and medical researchers with a huge catalogue of human DNA. One DNA study planned by Apple is in collaboration with the University of California and it is to study the causes of premature birth by uniting gene tests with other data gathered on the phones of expectant mothers. Above all, everyone is permitted to control whether or not they want to take part in any studies, and they are free to select how much data they want to share. ResearchKit apps allow perceiving the shared data with researchers.Legal Perspective
Apple, Apple’s logo and other Apple trademarks, graphics, service marks, as well as logos that are used in association with the ResearchKit project, are the registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the US and/or other countries. While the other trademarks, graphics, service marks, as well as logos that are used in association with the ResearchKit project may be the trademarks of their respective individual owners.References
Mazze, A. (2015). Big News: eClinicalOS + IBM Watson! Retrieved August 16, 2015, from eclinicalos.com: http://pages.eclinicalos.com/blogRoss, A. D. (2015). Apple's new ResearchKit: 'Ethics quagmire' or medical research aid? Retrieved August 16, 2015, from theverge.com: http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/10/8177683/apple-research-kit-app-ethics-medical-research
White, T. (2015). Stanford launches smartphone app to study heart health. Retrieved August 16, 2015, from stanford.edu: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2015/03/stanford-launches-smartphone-app-to-study-heart-health.html
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