Source: Microsoft Corp.
Yesterday, at Microsoft’s biotechnology Executive Forum, Microsoft announced the initiation of the BioIT Alliance’s second proof of concept, called the Biomarkers Project, along with an update on the Alliance’s first proof of concept, the Collaborative Molecular Environment.
The BioIT Alliance is a cross-industry group working to integrate science and technology to accelerate the pace of drug discovery and realize the potential of personalized medicine. The early focus of the Alliance has been to address the data-capture and data-integration challenges that face the industry.
“The life sciences offer one of the best opportunities for information technology to accelerate the pace of drug discovery and development,” said Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft. “Our collaboration in the Alliance will help the life science industry move discoveries from the lab to the clinic much faster.”
The Biomarkers Project: Initiation of Second Proof of Concept
“One of the most important fields of research today is in gaining an understanding of the relationship between genetic traits and clinical outcomes,” said Dr. Michael Hanley, vice president of Discovery Research at Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. “The research and pharmaceutical community is hindered by the lack of integration among the software tools that are used to gain this insight.”
To address these challenges of software integration, the BioIT Alliance is collaborating on its second proof of concept, the Biomarkers Project. This undertaking will simplify the process for identifying and validating genomic biomarkers — the characteristics that indicate the presence of a disease or the likely efficacy of a drug.