VOTES Virtual Organisations for Trials and Epidemiological Studies Overview The development of effective treatments of diseases such as cancer or cardiovascular disease, depend on the reliable assessment of new drugs. Clinical trials provide a controlled and structured framework to allow such assessments to take place. However, the numbers and data processing involved makes the collation and analysis of these assessments a complex task. The VOTES project aims to create an IT Grid infrastructure that will simplify the tasks involved in clinical trials by addressing three key areas: i) Recruitment of potentially eligible participants ii) Data collection during the study iii) Study administration and coordination Clinical Trials Clinical trials provide answers to questions such as: How many men in Scotland between the ages of had a heart-attack in the last 5 years? Of those that did, which of those men took drug X? Did those taking drug X suffer any further major events? This would help in answering related but more fundamental questions such as: Is the high rate of heart attacks in Scotland caused by genetic factors? Virtual Organisations One of the attractions of providing Grid infrastructures to aid with clinical trials is the ability to create Virtual Organisations (VOs). These provide: The ability to share resources and data between a dynamic set of institutions or individuals The ability to form and reform different VOs depending on the needs of the moment. To provide secure yet flexible access to this data, restricting permissions where necessary but making crucial data available to a wider audience.

Technical Work Trial forms – data-entry modules will be developed that plug into the current standard for clinical trials, used by GPs, GPASS. These will be secured by transforming the data to XML and passing this using an encrypted web service to the centralised database. Portals – portal technologies, such as GridSphere, are used to make the front- end as user-friendly as possible to those entering the data (not necessarily familiar with computers). Example parameter query form in a clinical trial Data integration – a combination of OGSA-DAI data services and JDBC driving database connections are used to integrate data across distinct clinical domains. Secure data repository – between submission to the centralised SCI store database, local data is held in a secured repository. Access control is applied using a secure hierarchical set of back-end access-control matrices Distributed security – the latest technology in secure attribute exchange, Shibboleth, is implemented to allow distributed authenticated access to the VOTES portal. Example results from a query distributed across several clinical databases Further information Further information on VOTES at NeSC: The current VOTES portal: e Contacts: Prof Richard Sinnott Anthony Stell Oluwafemi Ajayi Participating Institutions University of Glasgow University of Manchester Imperial College London University of Leicester University of Oxford University of Nottingham