For decades, certain sectors of medicine (cardiology, cancer therapy, and more) have attracted the lion’s share of research dollars. These worthy pursuits are increasingly sharing the financial pie with research devoted to sleep. 
Sleep Revolution, an interdisciplinary international research and development project, was recently selected for a $15-million Euro grant from the EU’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Health, demographic change and wellbeing.
According to an article at News Medical, the project aims to revolutionize research, diagnosis and treatment of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and related disorders. “With almost 40 international collaborating partners from academia and industry, it will develop machine-learning techniques to better estimate the severity and treatment needs for OSA, to improve health outcomes and quality of life,” writes Emily Henderson. “With the commitment of the European Sleep Research Society and the Assembly of National Sleep Societies, with its over 8000 members, the project further aims to create new standardized international guidelines for sleep medicine.”
Henderson explains that the project involves building a powerful database consisting of data from sleep measurements of 30 thousand individuals, collected in Iceland and around Europe. Additional data will be collected “utilizing smart watches, questionnaires, sleep-measuring devices, and neuropsychological tests. Furthermore, a safe digital platform will be developed for scientists, health professionals, and participants in OSA studies to share their data and research findings for research and diagnosis purposes.”
“We are extremely proud and look forward to continue building our sleep research with strong academic and industrial partners in the coming years,” says Dr Ari Kristinn Jonsson, president of Reykjavik University in the article, who added that the grant was “yet another confirmation of the quality of research conducted at the University.”
Source: News Medical Life Sciences