Learning from data: a journey from understanding the universe to predicting human diseases

The capability to produce, store and analyse vast amount of data had enormous impact on the progress of both physical science and industry applications. In this talk I will present some recent use-cases drawing from my experience as astrophysical researcher and as data and machine learning scientist in the healthcare industry. I will explain how the same algorithms that can be used to understand the origin of the universe can be applied to predict diseases and to support clinical trials. I will also describe how machine learning and data can be used to enhance multi-wavelength instrumentation and explain some of the scientific and industry applications opened up by this technique. I will conclude highlighting some of the challenges related to the use of big data and advanced machine learning that are common across disciplines and possible strategies to overcome them.