Apple wants to revolutionize medical research with ResearchKit

Today at Apple’s press event in Cupertino, Senior Vice President of Operations Jeff Williams announced ResearchKit, a software framework aimed at helping to collect data for medical studies. The idea, said Williams, is to turn the more than 700 million iPhones sold worldwide into “powerful […] tools” for self-diagnosis and research. By overcoming the infrastructural barriers faced by medical professionals, namely subjective and infrequent sources of data, Apple hopes ResearchKit will help supply researchers with a much larger, more accurate pool from which to draw from for clinical trials. Apple has partnered with a number of hospitals and institutions ahead of ResearchKit’s official release next month, but Williams highlighted a few during the presentation. The University of Rochester, Xuanwu Hospital, and Capital Medical University worked in tandem to develop an app that can measure the progression of Parkinson’s disease. On the client side, users can test themselves by taking a timed tapping test or measuring their gait and balance, or keep track of their physical activity (which preliminary research suggests can slow the disease).