VA looking for contractor to build database that will provide genomic information to VA researchers and "approved academic affiliates."

NOTE from Larry Scott, VA Watchdog dot Org ... The VA has planned for a number of years to build the world's largest database of genomic information (sometimes called a gene bank).

We have covered this extensively in the past.  See article (with backlinks) here ...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nfMAR08/nf030508-2.htm

This is absolutely scary given the VA's history in the area of human research and the lousy way they protect veterans' data ... more on lack of data security here ...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/va%20data%20theft%20news.htm

Who gets your genetic information?  VA researchers.  "Approved academic affiliates," whatever that means. 

How do they access it?  Remotely ... over the Internet.  See a potential problem there?

And, VA has asked for a "scalable" system so the genomic information can be linked to a veteran's medical records. 

While such a database would be invaluable when it comes to medical research, I just don't trust the VA to adequately protect the information.

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Veterans Administration Seeks Contractors to Build Scalable Platform to Handle -Omics Data

http://www.genomeweb.com/informatics/veterans-administration-s
eeks-contractors-build-scalable-platform-handle-omics-d

The Veterans Administration Office of Research & Development is soliciting proposals for a one-year contract to develop, build, and implement the Genomics Informatics System for Integrative Science, or GenISIS, which will hold -omics data behind the VA's firewall.

With this project, the VA said it is supporting the "next generation of clinical science," which is "capable of providing secure and efficient access and analysis of genotypic data accrued in several formats," including sequence data, copy number variation data, haplotype data, and phenotypic data to VA researchers and "approved academic affiliates."

According to the solicitation, available here, the VA ORD has initiatives underway "to include planned genome-wide scans and copy number variation" studies in persons with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, and post- traumatic stress disorder.

GenISIS is to be built jointly by a vendor with a team of VA developers in the VA's Boston Healthcare System. The award includes an option for "phase II" of the project.

Users will need to be able to load, store, and associate genomic data and other research data generated in VA's clinical and research laboratories and the system should enable "multi-dimensional" querying of both clinical data and genomic information, according to the solicitation.

The VA also said that the platform needs to be configured to help users cluster subsets for analysis and offer a remote access web interface so that data does not "need to move from the source."

The platform is intended as a repository for "processed" results and metadata to create a knowledgebase that will be available to many users within the VA System.

According to the solicitation, the VA seeks a platform that is scalable so that it can eventually include additional data types such as specimen data or medical record data.

The VA said that it planned to have genomic data available by the end of fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30. Personalized medicine was mentioned as one of the "key areas of research" in the VA's fiscal year 2009 budget submission.

The VA stated in its solicitation for GenISIS that the "absence of new computational infrastructure and overarching policy" from the Office of Research and Development would require investigators to generate data and store it in accordance with "academic and industry models of data use," which would create "real and perceived concerns of data security and privacy," and make it more difficult for VA investigators to share data amongst themselves. That situation could also hinder data standardization as well as the integration of that data with the VA electronic medical record, VistA.

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TOPICS: veterans, veterans' benefits, VA, Department of Veterans' Affairs, R&D, genomic, database