Translational research tries to bring basic research findings into medical applications. Given this “bench-to-bedside” approach, from laboratory experiments through clinical trials to point-of-care patient applications, heterogenous data is generated. This data needs to be integrated and analysed in order to drive the process forward.
We have vast experience in working with curation and integration of data from clinical studies and different types of assays. This includes work on ontologies/terminologies and managing data capture in labs from different geographical locations. A well-structured process to handle data is needed for any successful project or study!
For a number of studies we have used the tranSMART platform for data integration and harmonisation. For example, in the ABIRISK project this was a key to success, since data originated from a large number of different European countries. The first step in this case was to set up a common ontology or terminology describing the data captured, both semantically and syntactically. This enabled data custodians to prepare data in a harmonised format that could be integrated for statistical analysis.