This week, we are pleased to welcome Dr. Brenda Finney, Instem’s Vice President of Translational Sciences, as a guest contributor to the blog:
You only have to consider the amount of data that tech companies are collecting about us as we move around an app or the internet to realize how other industries view the value of data. So, when you are working in drug or chemical discovery, development and regulatory or clinical testing, what do you do with your data? Does it disappear into a black hole of storage if the program or compound is cancelled? Does it contribute to a submission and then go into an archive – where again, it never sees the light of day?
Let us think about it in a different way:
What kind of things could you do if you could not only access all of your old data, but some of everyone else’s data as well?
What kind of improvements could you make to your strategy if you could review preclinical and clinical data in a single space?
What if there was a tool that helped to start making translations between medical terms used for clinical events and preclinical observations?
My goal at Instem is to help answer those questions.
Building on the work accomplished by the eTRANSAFE consortium, we are bringing Centrus™ (formally known as ToxHub) to the wider community of pharma and chemical companies. This platform will make data more accessible both within companies by providing a private data repository, and across companies with a shared database. There is also a mechanism for sharing data with some details anonymized to preserve company confidential information, but still add useful information to scientific discourse.
It provides a translation ontology, customizable visualization and analytics tools, allowing researchers to explore and interpret data in a user-friendly manner. These tools help researchers identify trends, patterns, and correlations, enabling data-driven decision making and more efficient R&D processes. We want this system to foster an interdisciplinary collaborative environment by offering features such as data sharing, data visualization and modeling, making a space for knowledge sharing, and innovation among researchers, ultimately leading to more effective drug development.
If you would like to discuss this project, please contact me (Brenda Finney, brendy.finney@instem.com).
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