We recently reached out to some of the DIOPTRA partners who are leading various activities to gain their perspectives on the project’s mission from their areas of expertise. This resulted in a series of video interviews (available on our website and official YouTube channel), where they share insights into their challenges and ongoing work.
Our fourth interview features Ioannis Vezakis, an AI/ML Engineer at Tecreando – who discusses the DIOPTRA App and its utility for both researchers and users.
Here below is a transcript of the interview:
Could you tell us what users and researchers can expect from the DIOPTRA App?
From the users’ perspective, the App is there to ask them questions about their behaviour, about their lifestyle, and then show them a wellness score that is based on their healthy habits, let’s say. What it does is, it suggests new ways to improve their lifestyle. It gives them recommendations, and in this way, they can improve their wellness score – it rewards them for that.
In addition, the App has also a health literacy module, where users can learn more info about colorectal cancer, about screening, about diagnosis, about everything related to that. This info is up to date and curated by clinicians.
Now, from the researchers’ perspective, the App is there to collect behavioural data that will be used later on to find links between this behavioural data and the risk of developing colorectal cancer. So it’s an App to also gather this data for us.
Will the App be widely available?
The App will be widely available – yes. It will be available on Google Play Store and also on the iOS App Store. Everyone can download and use it. But only users who are registered on the DIOPTRA project, from these users we will save and store and process their data.
What is its development status?
We have already collected the requirements. We have done meetings, internally and externally with various organisations and partners, and we have already created the mock-ups and the design of the App, so that’s available. Right now, we are laying the groundwork, that means the server side components, the databases, the logic behind the App for the questions, and the personalised content.
Interested in learning more about other aspects of the DIOPTRA project? Check the interviews on Identifying protein biomarkers for Colorectal Cancer detection, A Clinical perspective from the field, and The Retrospective and Prospective Studies.
