The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) has selected GenoLogics to help develop an integrated biomedical software solution.
Dr Allan Brasier, director of the Sealy Center for Molecular Medicine (SCMM) at UTMB, said: ‘In order to enable our goal for personalised medicine, we decided to collaborate with GenoLogics to deploy a biomedical solution that will begin with user-friendly software to efficiently and effectively manage our biospecimens. Investing in a biomedical informatics solution that can also connect to our research data is going to assist the centre with attracting future funding such as the Clinical and Translational Science Awards.’
SCMM is focused on understanding cell stress response pathways using high-throughput systems-based approaches. The biomarkers programme is developing new tools to study and classify human diseases at a molecular level, allowing the prediction of individual susceptibility to disease. This research programme in personalised medicine will allow the centre to make better diagnostics for common medical diseases such as asthma, cancer, diabetes and degenerative diseases.
‘In order to validate our biomarkers for common diseases, we needed to exchange information from clinical to research domains,’ said Dr Kevin Rosenblatt, director for Biomarker Discovery at SCMM. ‘This can only be done with a biomedical informatics solution that not only tracks our biospecimens, but also the clinical annotations and then connects to the data being generated in our research labs. The GenoLogics Biomedical Informatics solution will have this unique capability to bring it all together in a single platform.’
GenoLogics launched its Biomedical Informatics software solution to address the needs of translational research initiatives. The solution allows clients to track prospective studies, collect patient data at remote sites, provide biospecimen and clinical annotations management and facilitate researchers querying on clinical information and requesting samples. The solution is comprised of five integrated products: BioVault for biospecimen management; BioChronicle for clinical annotations management; BioQuest to enable Web access; BioSphere for study management; and BioSource for electronic patient questionnaires.
SCMM is an interdisciplinary research centre at UTMB and is part of the newly formed Institute for Translational Sciences (ITS). The mission of SCMM is to serve as a focal interface between clinical and basic scientists, addressing UTMB’s strategic plan for personalised medicine.
