1. A Collaborative Environment Allowing Clinical Investigations on Integrated Biomedical Databases
Matthias Assel
HealthGrid 2009

2. Outline Motivation About ViroLab ViroLab Virtual Laboratory
Data Integration and Access
User Interfaces
Example: A large-scale epidemiological Study
Conclusion
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3. Motivation What we had… Distributed teams/groups/researchers
Distributed resources providing heterogeneous
data/information and capabilities
Distributed applications and workflows
What we wanted…
Integration of users, data, workflows, applications,
resources into one “virtual environment”
Interdisciplinary collaboration and research
Dynamic, on-demand and secure accessibility
of resources and data
HealthGrid 2009

4. About ViroLab Funded by EC within the 6th Framework Programme in the
area of integrated biomedical information for better health
11 partners from 8 different European countries
3.5 year project ( )
Experts from multiple disciplines
(Physicians, virologists, epidemiologists,
computer scientists)
Develop a “Virtual Laboratory” for
medical experts that allows clinical
studies, medical knowledge discovery,
and decision support for HIV drug
resistance
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5. Virtual Laboratory Stack
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6. Data Integration and Access
Usage of established HIV database management system: RegaDB
Data conversion and anonymization occur within each hospital (customized scripts)
Overall dataset size: ≈ patients and nt sequences
Set of virtualisation services - Data Access Services - that allows users to perform several activities on dispersed data resources
Single/central entry point for all
data requests representing the only
“visible” and accessible system
Secure data exchange and proper
access control for available resources
Integrated with existing frameworks
(Shibboleth, OGSA-DAI) to ease
development and improve functionality
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7. Virtual Laboratory Stack
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8. User Interfaces – Experiment Creation
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9. User Interfaces – Experiment Execution
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10. User Interfaces – Experiment Execution
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11. User Interfaces – Drug Resistance Interpretation
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12. User Interfaces – Drug Resistance Interpretation
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13. User Interfaces – Data Access and Retrieval
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14. A large-scale epidemiological Study
Data
Access
Tools
DRS
DA Tools
Analysis Tools
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15. Conclusion
Development of an advanced “virtual environment” for e-Science
Integration of several heterogeneous hospital databases
Design of advanced tools to support clinical research and practice
Tools and framework are not limited to HIV field but applicable for other infectious diseases as well
Prototype for future projects
Collaborative interdisciplinary research is crucial but challenging
HealthGrid 2009

16. Acknowledgements University of Amsterdam
Peter Sloot, Breanndán Ó Nualláin
Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam:
David van de Vijver, Dineke Frentz
Catholic University Leuven:
Anne-Mieke Vandamme, Pieter Libin, Kristof Theys,
Stijn Imbrechts, Raphael Sangeda
ACC Cyfronet AGH:
Marian Bubak, Daniel Harezlak, Piotr Nowakowski
HealthGrid 2009

17. Thank you for your attention.
Any questions?
HealthGrid 2009