BIRN’s current users range from relatively small research groups to large organizations, such as the Nonhuman Primate Research Consortium (NHPRC).  The common theme:  their need to share extremely large data quantities across disparate locations and computing systems, yet maintain tight privacy and security controls.

Users currently fall into two categories:

• Research organizations, such as the NHPRC, CVRG and former BIRN “testbeds” that performed proof-of-concept research in brain morphometry (MBIRN), brain functional imaging (FBIRN) and mouse brain atlasing (Mouse BIRN).
• BIRN Program Announcement recipients (PAR-07-426 Sharing Data and Tools: Federation using the BIRN and caBIG Infrastructures and PAR-07-425 Data Ontologies for Biomedical Research.)  Grants are funded by various NIH Institutes, through NIGMS, to help research groups share data and software tools with the public and expand existing biomedical ontologies.  As of late 2009, groups represent:
  • Northwestern University for sharing of schizophrenia-related brain MRI data and a landmarking tool.
  • University of California at San Diego for sharing electrophysiology data and an accompanying processing tool.
  • University of California at Irvine for expansion of the “NeuroLex” ontology to include terminology from specific clinical assessments.  An ontology is a shared taxonomy of items that enables large data collections to be searched efficiently.

We typically provide data sharing, query and analysis tools that enable users both to access data and to perform meaningful research on data.  Data sharing tools include functionality to move data from place to place, either within a user group or to allow sharing with the public.  There are also tools which allow users to query data that is distributed across multiple sites.  In addition, BIRN is assisting with data ontology construction and with application of knowledge engineering tools to biomedical data.

BIRN’s current users range from relatively small research groups to large organizations, such as the Nonhuman Primate Research Consortium (NHPRC).  The common theme:  their need to share extremely large data quantities across disparate locations and computing systems, yet maintain tight privacy and security controls.

Users currently fall into two categories:

• Research organizations, such as the NHPRC, CVRG and former BIRN “testbeds” that performed proof-of-concept research in brain morphometry (MBIRN), brain functional imaging (FBIRN) and mouse brain atlasing (Mouse BIRN).
• BIRN Program Announcement recipients (PAR-07-426 Sharing Data and Tools: Federation using the BIRN and caBIG Infrastructures and PAR-07-425 Data Ontologies for Biomedical Research.)  Grants are funded by various NIH Institutes, through NIGMS, to help research groups share data and software tools with the public and expand existing biomedical ontologies.  As of late 2009, groups represent:
  • Northwestern University for sharing of schizophrenia-related brain MRI data and a landmarking tool.
  • University of California at San Diego for sharing electrophysiology data and an accompanying processing tool.
  • University of California at Irvine for expansion of the “NeuroLex” ontology to include terminology from specific clinical assessments.  An ontology is a shared taxonomy of items that enables large data collections to be searched efficiently.

We typically provide data sharing, query and analysis tools that enable users both to access data and to perform meaningful research on data.  Data sharing tools include functionality to move data from place to place, either within a user group or to allow sharing with the public.  There are also tools which allow users to query data that is distributed across multiple sites.  In addition, BIRN is assisting with data ontology construction and with application of knowledge engineering tools to biomedical data.

BIRN’s current users range from relatively small research groups to large organizations, such as the Nonhuman Primate Research Consortium (NHPRC).  The common theme:  their need to share extremely large data quantities across disparate locations and computing systems, yet maintain tight privacy and security controls.

Users currently fall into two categories:

• Research organizations, such as the NHPRC, CVRG and former BIRN “testbeds” that performed proof-of-concept research in brain morphometry (MBIRN), brain functional imaging (FBIRN) and mouse brain atlasing (Mouse BIRN).
• BIRN Program Announcement recipients (PAR-07-426 Sharing Data and Tools: Federation using the BIRN and caBIG Infrastructures and PAR-07-425 Data Ontologies for Biomedical Research.)  Grants are funded by various NIH Institutes, through NIGMS, to help research groups share data and software tools with the public and expand existing biomedical ontologies.  As of late 2009, groups represent:
  • Northwestern University for sharing of schizophrenia-related brain MRI data and a landmarking tool.
  • University of California at San Diego for sharing electrophysiology data and an accompanying processing tool.
  • University of California at Irvine for expansion of the “NeuroLex” ontology to include terminology from specific clinical assessments.  An ontology is a shared taxonomy of items that enables large data collections to be searched efficiently.

We typically provide data sharing, query and analysis tools that enable users both to access data and to perform meaningful research on data.  Data sharing tools include functionality to move data from place to place, either within a user group or to allow sharing with the public.  There are also tools which allow users to query data that is distributed across multiple sites.  In addition, BIRN is assisting with data ontology construction and with application of knowledge engineering tools to biomedical data.