News and Press Releases
DataTern, Inc. Files NIH Challenge Grant Application
New York, 27 April 2009
Project Narrative: DataTern’s [NIH 10-RR-101] Information Technology Demonstration Project allows researchers to use their popular analytical tools such SAS to access multi-institutional data repositories with virtual internet tools.
DataTern will use three of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data repositories to demonstrate concurrent data inquiries and filtered responses from multiple data repositories.
DataTern’s demonstration plan has a multidisciplinary team of research experts advising on clinical, NHANES, genetics, and industry issues to obtain best practice outcomes for the research community.
Grant Project Abstract: DataTern’s [NIH 10-RR-101] Information Technology Demonstration Project allows researchers to use their familiar tools such as SAS to analyze large data sets composed of information integrated from multiple data sources provided by multiple owners for greatly enhanced and improved research programs.
DataTern’s project research plan demonstrates our solution’s ability to overcome the barriers that currently stand in the way of taking advantage of the enormous amounts of aggregate, anonymous, healthcare data that already exist: (a) data sets are spread out across a multiplicity of data sources, (b) the data sets do not share common vocabulary, ontologies, metrics, or formats, (c) the data set sources are controlled by a multiplicity of owners, (d) the data set owners use a multiplicity of methods to manage access control of the data, (e) data set owners often have not intended for the data to be used outside of their systems and have no provisions to support access by third-parties, and (f) data sources often contain private Personally Identifiable Information (PII) which cannot be exposed in disaggregated forms.
For this grant, DataTern builds a cloud computing environment for data mining and integration from multiple data repositories (that remain in situ in their native form) that appear to researchers as a single virtual database. As we integrate a new data set into the environment, we craft a unique adapter that both enforces the owner’s access control policies as well as enforcing its privacy policies to prevent exposing PII. DataTern demonstrates the enhanced research capabilities of a virtual data environment by using the highly quality-controlled and statistically rich research databases from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES). Specifically, our demonstration integrates public data from three NHANES databases (1999-2000, 2007-2008, and Genetics III). We supplement these data sets with simulated PII (avoiding exposing real PII data) to demonstrate our ability to perform complex filtering of such data.
DataTern assembles a multi-disciplinary group of expert advisors to provide quarterly feedback and vetting of the design and use of DataTern’s virtual data solutions. These include NHANES experts, clinical experts, population genetic experts and healthcare institutional and commercial experts. This will help provide for the broadest application, dissemination and scaling of the results of DataTern’s research efforts.
In summary, DataTern develops a virtual database capable of providing researchers with access to large amounts of research data while protecting data owners through the integrated enforcement of their access and privacy policies. Researchers can use our demonstration system upon completion. Post demonstration, we can continue to extend our system to incorporate additional data sets and features to continue to add value to the research community.
For further information please contact:
DataTern, Inc.
Joseph Flicek
+1 212.210.6221
About DataTern, Inc.
DataTern owns and develops critical technology that provides next generation software solutions for our customers. DataTern’s patented product offering include ObjectSpark® Technologies, which allow customers to develop their own customized data services layers, making the company’s offerings valuable to most industries, including automotive, banking, chemical, communications, financial, government, healthcare, insurance, pharmaceutical, trading, and many others. Non-exclusive licenses for DataTern’s technologies and patents are available on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. For licensing terms, please contact info@datatern.com.
On the web: www.datatern.com
