Learn about the caBIG® Intitiative

The cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid® (more commonly known as caBIG®) is an initiative developed by the National Cancer Institute that improves patient outcomes by utilizing information technologies to link researchers, physicians and patients across the national cancer enterprise. Prior to caBIG® the exchange of information, the sharing of tools and applications, and the reuse and expansion of successful strategies was limited by the lack of interoperable infrastructure. And, the idea of an open source, open access, open development cancer initiative has caught on in a big way. As of August of 2008, 46 NCI designated Cancer Centers and 16 Community Cancer Centers were in the process of getting connected to the caBIG® tools and infrastructure. And the programs impact is not limited to cancer research, there are currently over 1000 participants from over 200 organizations who are working on refining, supporting and adopting caBIG® tools and standards. When the national biomedical research community shares data, ideas and tools to combat disease we all win.

The vision of the caBIG® initiative is to speed research discoveries and improve patient outcomes by linking researchers, physicians, and patients throughout the cancer community. caBIG® is a voluntary network of infrastructure, tools, and ideas that enables the collection, analysis, and sharing of data and knowledge along the entire research pathway from laboratory bench to patient bedside. The goals of caBIG® are to:

  • Connect scientists and practitioners through a shareable and interoperable infrastructure
  • Develop standard rules and a common language to more easily share information
  • Build or adapt tools for collecting, analyzing, integrating, and disseminating information associated with cancer research and care.

Since its inception, caBIG® has committed to the following cornerstones:

  • Federated: caBIG® software and resources are widely distributed, interlinked, and available to everyone in the cancer research community, but institutions maintain local control over their own resources and data.
  • Open-development: caBIG® tools and infrastructure are being developed through an open, participatory process. caBIG® leverages existing resources whenever possible, rather than building new tools in every case.
  • Open-access: caBIG® resources are freely obtainable by the cancer community to ensure broad data-sharing and collaboration.
  • Open-source: The caBIG® source code is available to view, alter, and redistribute.

Today, there are currently over 40 applications that can are supported or in being developed by the caBIG® community. These applications are clustered into those supporting clinical trial based research, life sciences research and data sharing and security. As a winner of the 2009 Bio-IT World Best Practices Editors' Choice Award the caBIG® program has ushered in a new era of cooperative, open, community based development of state-of-the-art tools capable of sharing and exchanging data.
 

HealthCare IT, Inc. is a Support Service Provider in the area of deployment for the caBIG® initiative. We port, tune and install caBIG® software on our commercial hardware and network infrastructures so that the applications and tools can be easily accessed and used by anyone in the community as a service.
 

For further information about caBIG®, visit https://cabig.nci.nih.gov (for information about caBIG® technologies, policies, projects and organization) and http://cabig.cancer.gov (for general information)