Barncancerfonden

Organization Overview

Barncancerfonden, Sweden’s leading funder of childhood cancer research, launched Project BrainChild to tackle fragmentation in clinical, genomic, and imaging data across institutions. The project aims to create a unified, interoperable, and secure data infrastructure to accelerate diagnosis, treatment development, and AI-driven insights that could fundamentally improve outcomes and care pathways in pediatric oncology.

Mission & Highlights

• Connecting siloed data for smarter care: BrainChild addresses a key barrier, fragmented datasets across hospitals, research centers, and biobanks, by creating a harmonized data ecosystem that enables better decision-making and personalized treatment.
• AI as a clinical partner: The platform integrates clinical records with genomic sequencing and imaging to train AI tools that support diagnostic accuracy, relapse prediction, and treatment responsiveness, advancing AI’s role as an aide rather than a replacement for clinicians.
• Real-world validation underway: The pilot involves over 500 Swedish children treated between 2021 and 2024; it’s being scaled with government support, including SEK 10 million and an additional SEK 4.9 million via Genomic Medicine Sweden, as well as key partnerships with Microsoft, research hospitals, and biobanks.
• Accelerating equitable care globally: The project aspires to democratize precision diagnostics, not just in Sweden but worldwide, by enabling AI-supported screening in regions with fewer medical resources and specialists.

Objectives / Engagement

• Facilitate the feasibility study to scope a global childhood cancer data platform, covering technical design, partner identification, and legal structure.
• Define requirements, taxonomy, tech architecture, and compliance rules through multidisciplinary working groups working under transparency and stakeholder involvement.

Engage clinical, academic, and technology partners, including Microsoft, GMS, county registries, and genomics infrastructure, to lay the foundation for a scalable, secure data solution.