Concept Clearances

1
Concept Clearances Making BIRN Easier to
Use NARRC May 14, 2008 Greg Farber
2
Update on the Biomedical Informatics Research
Network (BIRN)

• The major goal of BIRN is to provide an
  infrastructure that will allow researchers to
  collaborate and share data and tools to analyze
  that data.
• This program is supported through four awards to

• Mark Ellisman UCSD BIRN Coordinating Center
• Steven Potkin UC Irvine Function BIRN
• Bruce Rosen MGH Morphometry BIRN
• Arthur Toga UCLA Mouse BIRN

3
Current BIRN Related FOAs

• Two program announcements have been released that
  allow researchers to add their tools or data to
  the BIRN (or caBIG, CVRG) infrastructures or to
  develop vocabularies to aid in data deposition
  (PAR-07-425 and PAR-07-426).
• A wide range of NIH ICs signed on to these
  announcements including NCI, NCCAM, NCRR, NEI,
  NHLBI, NHGRI, NIA, NIAAA, NIBIB, NICHD, NIDCD,
  NIDCR, NIDA, NIEHS, NIGMS, NIMH, NINDS, and NINR.

4
What Is Missing?

• Researchers need an interface as easy as MBAT
  that will allow them to share (and analyze) data.
• Researchers need advice on how to structure their
  data collection and data processing activities to
  make their data useful to researchers outside
  their laboratory.
• Some communities (or members of some communities)
  need outreach to convince them of the value in
  sharing their data.

5
SBIR FOA to Provide Software Tools that Make Data
Sharing Easy

• Share Data
• Which Infrastructure?
• How widely should this be
• shared?
• Vocabularies describing
• the data and experiment

6
What Is Missing?

• Researchers need an interface as easy as MBAT
  that will allow them to share (and analyze) data.
• Researchers need advice on how to structure their
  data collection and data processing activities to
  make their data useful to researchers outside
  their laboratory.
• Some communities (or members of some communities)
  need outreach to convince them of the value in
  sharing their data.

7
Notice of Limited Competition

• Participants in the BIRN testbed awards have a
  significant amount of knowledge about both the
  BIRN infrastructure and the problems faced by
  biomedical/clinical researchers when setting up
  an experiment.
• The purpose of this Notice will be to support a
  group that can offer advice on data collection,
  data analysis, or data presentation to those who
  want to use the BIRN infrastructure.
• It is expected that the limited competition
  awardee(s) will work with researchers at CTSA
  sites.

8
Request for Concept Clearance

• We ask for clearance to develop
• 1) An SBIR funding opportunity announcement
  that will support software that will act as the
  on ramp to the national data sharing
  infrastructures.
• 2) A Notice of Limited Competition to provide
  outreach to biomedical researchers on the best
  way to design experiments to allow data sharing
  and to encourage the use of available data
  sharing infrastructures.