Deep learning techniques for biomedical data processing

Abstract

The interest in Deep Learning (DL) has seen an exponential growth in the last ten years, producing a significant increase in both theoretical and applicative studies. On the one hand, the versatility and the ability to tackle complex tasks have led to the rapid and widespread diffusion of DL technologies. On the other hand, the dizzying increase in the availability of biomedical data has made classical analyses, carried out by human experts, progressively more unlikely. Contextually, the need for efficient and reliable automatic tools to support clinicians, at least in the most demanding tasks, has become increasingly pressing. In this survey, we will introduce a broad overview of DL models and their applications to biomedical data processing, specifically to medical image analysis, sequence processing (RNA and proteins) and graph modeling of molecular data interactions. First, the fundamental key concepts of DL architectures will be introduced, with particular reference to neural networks for structured data, convolutional neural networks, generative adversarial models, and siamese architectures. Subsequently, their applicability for the analysis of different types of biomedical data will be shown, in areas ranging from diagnostics to the understanding of the characteristics underlying the process of transcription and translation of our genetic code, up to the discovery of new drugs. Finally, the prospects and future expectations of DL applications to biomedical data will be discussed.