TraIT platform welcomes the 1,000th researcher
The 1,000th researcher, working at the Elisabeth-TweeSteden Hospital in Tilburg, has registered for TraIT to process research results
The 1,000th researcher in TraIT, Peggy Langenhoff, from the Elisabeth-TweeSteden Hospital in Tilburg, is collaborating in a large-scale trial. Peggy Langenhoff, research coordinator Internal Medicine: “My colleagues and I are working on an improved composition of chemotherapy for patients with a form of head and neck cancer.” This particular study, called the Commence trial, was initiated by Dr C. van Herpen, internist-oncologist at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen. Aside from the Elisabeth-TweeSteden Hospital, eight other hospitals are collaborating in the Commence trial. At every location, the study is conducted in an identical way, data are collected in an identical way and entered in the same manner in software applications through TraIT infrastructure. Ultimately, the data are shared with other researchers.
Modern biomedical research requires large volumes of patient data to assess the effectiveness of new treatments. Patient data are collected in long-term, costly clinical trials, such as the Commence trial. This type of nationwide collaborative project used to be left to its own devices in setting up the IT systems. With the advent of TraIT, much greater use can be made of standard solutions that are jointly designed and managed.
TraIT is an IT platform for translational biomedical research projects with extensive data files (‘big data’). It offers an easy, accessible way to collect, analyse, archive, disseminate and secure data, thereby accelerating innovations in medical care and ultimately resulting in better healthcare at lower costs. TraIT is a Dutch public-private partnership with thirty partners.
Gerrit Meijer, Principal Investigator of TraIT and Professor of Pathology at the VU University Medical Center Amsterdam: “It is fantastic that the 1,000th researcher has registered. The power of collaboration is being recognised by more and more researchers. I would venture to say that aligning efforts in this way can save years in the launch of new diagnostic and treatment methods, ultimately resulting in better and more efficient healthcare.”
More than 150 trials with data from thousands of patients are now using TraIT IT systems to store, integrate and analyse their data. Thanks to this powerful collaboration in the field of IT, optimal attention can also be devoted to organizational aspects, such as privacy and support.
TraIT is an ambitious Dutch project to develop an IT infrastructure for translational medicine: for the translation of scientific discoveries into applications for the patient. TraIT was launched in 2011 and is a project of the Dutch public-private partnership Center for Translational Molecular Medicine (CTMM), located at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven. The TraIT project preferably uses existing standards and software platforms and favours open source software, if possible. TraIT currently has thirty partners, including all the university medical centres in the Netherlands, Philips, GlaxoSmithKline, Netherlands eScience Center, The Hyve and a number of SME companies. The Dutch Heart Foundation and the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF) have also joined as partners. TraIT has already been collaborating with research groups at the international level.
