The ICTBioMed NCIP Hub: Cancer research in a science gateway consortium

Abstract

ICTBioMed, the International Consortium for Technology in Biomedicine is a consortium for biomedical collaborative research and the consortium partners believe in decentralization and democratization of science. The consortium works on strategies to develop ready-to-use research initiatives bridging the gap between research, implementation and ready-to-use science. The consortium has identified real science use cases with the help of the collaborative partners to get access of shared data and methods using the principles of science gateways. ICTBioMed has set up an NCIP Hub instance based upon the HUBzero framework and started using it for community research activities. It is an environment for scientific collaboration where researchers can access and take advantage of a variety of resources shared by others. The NCIP Hub supports members with shared access to data, tools, and standards across the cancer research community. Cancer researchers, in principle, have access to a wide range of data and software tools but in practice, however, they make limited use of these resources. Barriers that restrict access include the need to install software locally, inconsistent user interfaces, security concerns and poor documentation. ICTBioMed is developing a cancer science gateway that will greatly simplify analysis in cancer imaging research by offering a single point of entry and a unified interface for multiple tools, databases, and image repositories widely used by the community. The consortium aims at borderless research with a common goal to solve real life biomedical problems by facilitating collaborative research.