The Open Medical Informatics Journal

2010, 4 : 171-178
Published online 2010 September 1. DOI: 10.2174/1874431101004010171
Publisher ID: TOMINFOJ-4-171

RESEARCH ARTICLE
 caGrid-Enabled caBIG Silver Level Compatible Head and Neck Cancer Tissue Database System

Haibin Wang , *,1 , Erik Bouzyk 1 , Anna Kuehn 2,3 , Susan Muller 2,3 , Zhengjia Chen 1,6 , Fadlo R Khuri 4 , Dong M Shin4 , André Rogatko 5 and Mourad Tighiouart 1,6
1 Biostatistics Shared Core Resource, Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA
2 Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA3Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA
3 Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA
4 Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA
5 Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core, Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA
6 Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA

* Address correspondence to this author at the Biostatistics Shared Core Resource, Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA; Tel: +01 4047784332; Fax: +01 4047785016; E-mail: hwang25@emory.edu

ABSTRACT

There are huge amounts of biomedical data generated by research labs in each cancer institution. The data are stored in various formats and accessed through numerous interfaces. It is very difficult to exchange and integrate the data among different cancer institutions, even among different research labs within the same institution, in order to discover useful biomedical knowledge for the healthcare community. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a caGrid-enabled caBIGTM silver level compatible head and neck cancer tissue database system. The system is implemented using a set of open source software and tools developed by the NCI, such as the caCORE SDK and caGrid. The head and neck cancer tissue database system has four interfaces: Web-based, Java API, XML utility, and Web service. The system has been shown to provide robust and programmatically accessible biomedical information services that syntactically and semantically interoperate with other resources.

Keywords:

caBIG compatible level, caCORE SDK, caGrid, head and neck cancer, cancer tissue database, model driven architecture, semantic interoperability.