Getting Connected with caBIG™
Cancer Community becoming a network of thousands of “peers”
In the world of cancer research, the imperative of “connectivity” is gaining ground. In the genomic age, laboratory and clinical information is being generated, in vast quantities, at an ever-increasing pace. To transform all of those data into useful knowledge to improve patient outcomes requires that the informatics systems of the nation’s cancer research enterprise be truly interoperable, and that a cultural shift towards collaboration evolves within all sectors of the cancer community.
caBIG™ Offers a Pathway
The ability to connect people, organizations, and data through information technology is critical to fulfilling NCI’s mission and to taking advantage of the research opportunities offered by 21st century science. The vision of the caBIG™ initiative is to be the information network enabling all constituencies in the cancer community to share data and knowledge to accelerate the discovery of new approaches to prevention, diagnostics and therapeutics.
Having successfully completed its three-year Pilot, caBIG™ is now embarking on an Enterprise Phase, in which a broader segment of the cancer and biomedical research community will be connected to each other through a variety of technical, product, service and training programs. To expedite the process, key caBIG™ resources will be packaged into bundles that can be implemented in an institution to facilitate its connection to other institutions.
In the coming months,“early adopters”—those who are playing a pioneering role by making their trials, data, and legacy systems caBIG™-compatible—will be sharing their experience to make it easier for others to follow down the pathway to caBIG™ interoperability.
Information about Enterprise Phase activities and opportunities to implement caBIG™ tools and compatibility resources will be posted on the caBIG™ Web site in early October.
In addition, the next issue of caBIG™ Links, Issue 5, will highlight the new features contained in the recent release of caGrid 1.1, the underlying service oriented infrastructure for caBIG™. caGrid 1.1 is an important step towards achieving true interoperability among cancer researchers, with the goal of fostering connections and collaboration throughout the cancer community.
