Making sense of big data in health research: Towards an EU action plan.

Medicine and healthcare are undergoing profound changes. Whole-genome sequencing and high-resolution imaging technologies are key drivers of this rapid and crucial transformation. Technological innovation combined with automation and miniaturization has triggered an explosion in data production that will soon reach exabyte proportions. How are we going to deal with this exponential increase in data production? The potential of "big data" for improving health is enormous but, at the same time, we face a wide range of challenges to overcome urgently. Europe is very proud of its cultural diversity; however, exploitation of the data made available through advances in genomic medicine, imaging, and a wide range of mobile health applications or connected devices is hampered by numerous historical, technical, legal, and political barriers. European health systems and databases are diverse and fragmented. There is a lack of harmonization of data formats, processing, analysis, and data transfer, which leads to incompatibilities and lost opportunities. Legal frameworks for data sharing are evolving. Clinicians, researchers, and citizens need improved methods, tools, and training to generate, analyze, and query data effectively. Addressing these barriers will contribute to creating the European Single Market for health, which will improve health and healthcare for all Europeans

The phosphoprotein pp135 is an essential constituent of the fibrillar components of nucleoli and of coiled bodies.

We examined the distribution of the silver-stainable phosphoprotein, pp135, within Ehrlich tumor and HEp-2 cells by a postembedding Lowicryl immunogold labeling procedure. Identical labeling patterns were obtained in both cell types. During interphase, gold particles were found not only over the dense fibrillar component but were also evident over the fibrillar centers of nucleoli. By contrast, the granular component did not display any significant label. When rRNA synthesis was inhibited by actinomycin D, the same labeling was observed in segregated nucleoli; both fibrillar components were labeled. Aside from the nucleolar labeling, label was also consistently present in coiled bodies. During metaphase, label was visualized in silver-stainable material of the nucleolus organizing regions. It thus appears that, unlike the two major silver-stained proteins, nucleolin/C23 and B23, pp135 remains located in all major silver-stainable structures during the whole cell cycle. This finding strongly suggests that pp135 could be the component responsible for in situ silver staining. On the other hand, the maintenance of pp135 in the fibrillar centers throughout the cell cycle, like RNA polymerase I, upstream binding factor, and DNA topoisomerase I, suggests that pp135 could be a component involved in transcription of the rRNA genes