The tools and infrastructure of caBIG^® can be generalized and applied in a variety of biomedical settings beyond the cancer community, as follows:

• Beyond cancer, the tools and infrastructure of caBIG^® are being used to enable Personalized Medicine approaches in other therapeutic areas, such as in cardiovascular disease at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
• Beyond research, caBIG^® is linking discovery, clinical research and care delivery, in order to achieve the essential unity of research and care.
• Beyond the National Institutes of Health, caBIG^® is being integrated into the federal health architecture to connect the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN).
• Beyond U.S. borders, caBIG^® tools and infrastructure are being adopted to enable biomedical enterprises in the United Kingdom, India, Singapore, China, and some countries in Latin America to achieve Personalized Medicine.
• Beyond the "silos" of the traditional health care enterprise, the caBIG^® infrastructure is being applied to link a complex ecosystem of constituencies in the BIG Health Consortium^™ to demonstrate Personalized Medicine in real settings, in real time.

Joining Cardiovascular Research
One example of the adaptation of caBIG^® to other therapeutic areas is the Cardiovascular Research Grid (CVRG) project, currently under development at Johns Hopkins University, Ohio State University, and the University of California at San Diego. At the heart of this effort is caGrid. Teams from all three institutions are adapting caGrid to connect tools and data from the cardiovascular research community with the goal of enabling collaboration and shared discovery between cardiovascular researchers internationally.

Enabling the Nationwide Health Information Network
caBIG^® technology is being integrated into the architecture of NHIN, whose goal is to provide secure, nationwide access to health information by connecting researchers, caregivers, providers, and patients in a seamless network. caBIG^® software provides the "IT glue" to connect different data types and disconnected IT systems, providing physicians and researchers with access to critical healthcare data regardless of where it is stored.

Developing Electronic Health Records for the Oncology Community
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the preeminent professional society for oncologists, and the NCI are collaborating to design an oncology EHR that will utilize caBIG^® standards for interoperability. This new EHR will then be deployed to the participating hospitals of the National Community Cancer Center Program (NCCCP), bringing advanced information technology to traditionally underserved patients. By leveraging existing work already conducted by a variety of organizations, it is anticipated that a pilot program could be deployed to the NCCCP sites in 2009.

To learn more about the ways caBIG^® is moving "beyond cancer" check out Collaborations with Biomedical and Research Communities.