Resources
Case Study: Ivy Genomics-Based Medicine Project
Client
The Ben and Catherine Ivy Foundation, and The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).
Overview
Funded by the Ben and Catherine Ivy Foundation and guided by TGen, the Ivy Genomics-Based Medicine Project is an active collaboration among nine U.S. institutions working together to better understand how the genetic differences in individual brain tumors can potentially inform the prediction of what will be the most effective treatment option for each patient.
This project will categorize tumors by molecular profiling and, for the first time in brain cancer research, test each tumor against a wide spectrum of treatments to match differences in response with the profiles. It challenges not only many of the traditional boundaries of IT but the business processes that support the anticipated throughput of collaborative science and the consortia model.
Problem
The Ivy GBM project challenged not only many of the traditional boundaries of IT but the business processes that support the anticipated throughput of collaborative science and the consortia model. The vision was to provide:
- First access to the chemovulnerability- and genomic-profiling data
- Full access to any GBM models used in the consortium
- Use of consortium resources for independent research and/or follow-on sustained research projects
- Demonstration and practice of profile-guided management
- Synergy of collaborative, interdisciplinary, multi-institutional research
- Positioning to participate in stage II clinical trial of profile-guided treatments
Solution
5AM Solutions created a highly collaborative environment for participating institutions across the country to share study information before, during and after the study. We developed customized workflows, inventory tracking, and role-based information collection and sharing, supporting subject enrollment, clinical data collection, specimen creation and tracking, data export and online analysis. 5AM Solutions launched an initial study in 4 weeks to meet the demanding timeline set by the consortium. 5AM effectively balanced the needs for speed, reliability, accuracy and the exposure of progress.
Benefits
A key benefit occurred up front through the study definition and elicitation process. This series of activities sharpened the direction of the study (not just the software), forced the analysis of how the research would be run from a variety of perspectives and allowed us to be able to incrementally meet the needs as they were derived. 5AM's hosting of the software eliminated concerns of HIPAA, data backup, encryption, in-house maintenance, and collaborator/customer service and support.
For the collaborators, the project portal provided unprecedented ability to share study related documents and SOPs for the study. User adoption was quick as new collaborators were able to contribute within an hour of supervised training.