Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the one hand there is the need for a reliable, supported, secure suite of
software tools, and on the other is a wealth of high-quality, powerful
open source software written to analyse and manage the torrent of
data produced by the latest DNA sequencing technology. Traditionally
when faced with this type of challenge, pharmaceutical companies
would turn to their vast internal IT departments, who would internally
develop the skills needed to manage and support the software. However,
this is an expensive and wasteful approach, with each pharmaceutical
company having to build an internal platform, integrate it with existing
systems and provide the high level of expert support demanded by
the scientists in their company. The skills needed to build such a platform
are a blend of world-class IT with cutting-edge scientifi c knowledge,
which is rare, valuable and in high demand, which in turn makes it
expensive.
However, in many instances, even when pharmaceutical companies do
make signifi cant internal investments in building and supporting IT,
it is arguable that they provide any competitive advantage over their
peers [7]. This is particularly true in the DNA sequence domain, where
many of the core algorithms and software are free and open for anyone
to use. It has quickly become apparent that the competitive value
between companies came from the results generated by these systems
and not from building the systems themselves. It is from this type of
realisation that organisations such as the Pistoia Alliance [8] were
conceived.
The Pistoia Alliance is a non-profi t organisation that was set up in
recognition of the great deal of important, yet pre-competitive work
being done in the life sciences industry. The Pistoia Alliance has members
ranging from giant Fortune 500 companies, through to new start-ups,
and it spans both life sciences companies, and IT vendors who supply all
sorts of the infrastructure used in modern pharmaceutical research. The
stated goal of the Pistoia Alliance is to 'lower the barriers to innovation
in Life-sciences research'. One excellent way of achieving this is to
develop, champion and adopt open standards or technologies that make
it easy to transfer data and collaborate with other companies, institutions
and researchers. The Pistoia Alliance has been running several projects
ranging from open standards for transferring scientifi c observations
from electronic lab notebooks, to developing new open technology to
allow better queries across published scientifi c literature. However,
the project that illustrates how industry can work in a more open
environment in the area of DNA sequence technology is known as
'Sequence Services'.
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