21ST CENTURY BIOMEDICAL TECHNOLOGIES are changing more than scientific knowledge and methods—they are changing the scientific community itself and the ways in which individual scientists and scientific institutions interact cooperatively towards a common goal.
As caBIG® technology accelerates that dramatic shift in biomedical research, its impact extends far beyond the borders of the United States and even beyond cancer-specific research. caBIG® is actively collaborating to supply research-enabling technology to programs in other countries, to adapt tools and technology developed elsewhere to U.S. cancer research and clinical care, to leverage caBIG® infrastructure for research in other diseases, and to use caBIG® as an electronic "connector" to link disparate sectors of the healthcare system.
Supporting Cancer Research Internationally
The NCI and the U.K. National Cancer Research Initiative (NCRI) have a longstanding collaboration to leverage the best applications and technologies developed by each organization. The NCRI is leveraging caGrid technology for its applications while the caBIG® program is planning to adopt the NCRI Oncology Information Exchange (ONIX) portal, providing a Web-accessible entry point to the combined resources of the NCRI and the caBIG® program for the mutual benefit of cancer researchers working in the U.S. and the U.K.
In September 2008, the NCI and the NCRI held a joint conference, Biomedical Informatics without Borders: Enabling Collaboration to Strengthen Research and Care, to explore ways to speed scientific discovery. At the meeting, nearly 500 technologists and researchers learned about global grid initiatives and tools that facilitate data sharing across national borders and discussed opportunities to power future collaboration.
caBIG® is also actively collaborating with the Shanghai Center for Bioinformatics Technology (SCBIT) (http://eng.scbit.org) to develop mutually beneficial exchanges of knowledge and technology, with the ultimate goal of driving widespread adoption of caBIG® technology into the People's Republic of China. In addition, Duke University is partnering with the Beijing Cancer Hospital of Peking University to conduct a Phase II clinical trial for breast cancer using the CTMS software suite.
The NCI is also supporting the development of the new King Hussein Cancer and Biotechnology Institute near Aman, Jordan. When completed in 2011, this center will support basic and translational research and will provide state-of-the-art medical care for cancer patients in Jordan and other Middle Eastern countries. The collaboration is focused on the adoption of caBIG® to provide the standards that will enable data interoperability and on the widespread adoption of electronic health records.
caGrid: National "Pipeline" for the Cancer Community
At the heart of the caBIG® program is an IT infrastructure that enables connectivity among people, organizations, data, and analysis tools. Invisible to the end-user and customized for the specific needs of biomedical researchers, caGrid is a model-driven, service-oriented architecture that provides standards-based core services, tools, and interfaces so the community can connect to caGrid easily to share data and analysis efficiently and securely. There are currently more than 100 grid nodes online at government, academic, and commercial organizations.
For a real-time list of available grid nodes and services, visit http://cagrid-portal.nci.nih.gov.
Supporting Research Beyond Cancer
Designed from the outset to support the basic principles of biomedical research and clinical care, most caBIG® tools are widely applicable beyond cancer. Examples include:
CVRG (CardioVascular Research Grid). The goal of the CVRG project (http://www.cvrgrid.org/) is to enable collaboration and shared discovery across the cardiovascular research community. The CVRG is currently under development at Johns Hopkins University, The Ohio State University, and the University of California at San Diego. Still in the early stages of a four-year grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the development of standardized vocabularies for describing biomedical data, models, and data analysis applications in cardiovascular research is already in progress. Since the CVRG grid is based on the same underlying technology used in caGrid, the two independent research networks could be connected if desired, building a "Grid of Grids."
