Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
fi nding out what has been done before from the literature and in discussion
with their peers. Discovery chemists like to keep their work to themselves until
it is completed, so collaborative aspects of the ELN were not highly developed.
In principle, once all the information is electronic, it can be searched by
anyone, anywhere in the organization. Biologists, however, frequently work in
teams where collaboration is the norm. Once an invention moves from research
to development, the need for collaboration grows.
Multinational companies particularly could benefi t from the sharing of
information. Here a scientist in one continent can benefi t from the knowledge
acquired by a colleague in another continent even though they may be working
on different projects. More recently companies have gone further, and they
have adopted an aggressive policy of outsourcing research and development
to third parties, often a contract, or clinical research organization (CRO) in
China or India. The outsourcing of clinical research was a normal part of
research in the 1990s; companies such as Quintiles, Huntingdon Life Sciences,
and Covance benefi ted greatly from this approach. Extension to chemical and
biological research and development was then natural.
Outsourcing is driving the collaborative aspects of the ELN and placing
strict constraints on who collaborates with whom. The ELN also provides a
common language and format for the exchange of information; here describing
procedures in terms of predefi ned terms improves clarity. A procedural step
can be described in a number of languages and translated into the local form
based on the user's preference. This improves clarity of understanding and
reliability of information transfer.
Company employees need to be able to view results from the CRO, and
the CRO needs to be able to see information relevant to their work that is
available within the company, but they must be restricted from viewing other
work. Cloud computing is currently in vogue and is seen as a way to deliver
selective collaboration because cloud computing environments have to be set
up to guarantee the isolation of groups of users.
The cloud is not the only way to share data. More traditional Web-based
hosted systems, such as that offered by Collaborative Drug Discovery (CDD),
also allow users to share data selectively. This company also offers a public
site where data can be made openly visible. Cloud computing vendors and
companies like CDD do not yet offer ELNs, but their technology can provide
the foundation for a collaborative ELN environment.
19.6
PISTOIA ALLIANCE
The Pistoia Alliance [12] (Chapter 1) was set up following an ad hoc meeting
of scientists from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), AZ, Pfi zer, and Novartis who
all identifi ed similar challenges and frustrations in discovery informatics.
The Alliance gets its name from the town of Pistoia where the group had
congregated for an Accelrys user group meeting. The group is founded on the
following:
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