caBIG™ Awarded Bio-IT World’s Editor’s Choice Award
The cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid™ (caBIG™) initiative was recently honored as the sole winner of Bio-IT World’s prestigious Editor’s Choice Award 2008, for the implementation of an open source network to speed cancer research.
Kenneth H. Buetow, Ph.D., associate director for Bioinformatics and Information Technology at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) accepted the award on behalf of caBIG™ at Bio-IT World’s Best Practices Awards Dinner on April 29, 2008, which was held in conjunction with the Sixth Annual Bio-IT World Conference and Expo.
"The caBIG™ initiative has been the result of dedicated efforts on the part of more than 1,000 individuals from more than 200 academic, government, and commercial organizations across the country over the past four years," Dr. Buetow said.
"Today, caBIG™ tools and infrastructure are being adopted or adapted in more than 46 NCI Cancer Centers and 16 Community Cancer Centers, thereby forming a network for gathering, sharing, and analyzing data that we expect will transform research. But truly, we are just at the beginning of caBIG™, because as the lessons of this endeavor spread beyond cancer, we will see such linkages and collaborations change the face of all biomedical research and clinical care."
A peer-review panel of 14 expert judges evaluated a record 54 nominations from organizations ranging from large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, to academic institutions, to niche service providers, detailing best practices in one of seven categories in addition to the Editor’s Choice Award.
"We were very pleased to be able to give this year's Bio-IT World Editors' Choice Award to Dr. Kenneth Buetow on behalf of the NCI for caBIG™," commented Dr. Kevin Davies, Bio-IT World's editor-in-chief. "Of the more than 50 entries that we received in this year's Best Practices competition, we were particularly impressed by the scope and vision of this ambitious program, which is playing such a critical role in shaping the future of cancer research."
Seven other organizations were honored in such categories as basic research, clinical research, clinical trials, drug discovery and development, IT informatics, knowledge management, and translational and personalized medicine. Award winners and their technologies will be profiled in the July / August issue of Bio-IT World.
Established in 2003, Bio-IT World's Best Practices Awards Program recognizes organizations for their outstanding innovations and excellence in the use of technologies, practices, and novel business strategies that will advance drug discovery, development, biomedical research, and clinical trials.
For more information about Bio-IT World's Best Practices Awards Program and to find out which other organizations were honored, visit: http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=850416.
