Big data analytics for personalized medicine

Big Data are radically changing biomedical research. The unprecedented advances in automated collection of large-scale molecular and clinical data pose major challenges to data analysis and interpretation, calling for the development of new computational approaches. The creation of powerful systems for the effective use of biomedical Big Data in Personalized Medicine (a.k.a. Precision Medicine) will require significant scientific and technical developments, including infrastructure, engineering, project and financial management. We review here how the evolution of data-driven methods offers the possibility to address many of these problems, guiding the formulation of hypotheses on systems functioning and the generation of mechanistic models, and facilitating the design of clinical procedures in Personalized Medicine.