NIH Undiagnosed Diseases Program Named “Best Practices” Research System By Bio-IT World

Undiagnosed Diseases Program Integrated Collaboration System (UDPICS) was the basis for the CloudDx Translational commercial system from Appistry

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Appistry, Inc., a leading provider of tools, software, and services that enable healthcare institutions to practice genomically enhanced medicine, is pleased to congratulate its customer and partner, the National Institutes of Health Undiagnosed Diseases Program (NIH UDP), which today received the Editor’s Choice Best Practices Award at the Bio-IT World Conference and Expo in Boston. The NIH UDP was recognized for its research collaboration system, which supports the delivery of individualized medicine to all patients seeking the UDP’s help diagnosing and treating rare, undiagnosed diseases.

“This award recognizes the outstanding achievement of many, many people at the NIH UDP and their aim of providing the very best care to those seeking help for intractable diseases”

The Undiagnosed Diseases Program Integrated Collaboration System (UDPICS) was developed over a two-year span at the NIH UDP specifically to leverage the niche expertise of a broad community of researchers, both within the NIH and outside its walls. Initially developed to meet tactical needs such as tracking patient samples and coordinating research activities, the system today provides a strategic environment that makes all project data accessible so that project team members can collaborate to develop innovative hypotheses and project plans. To date, UDPICS has helped the NIH UDP recruit outside collaborators for more than 300 patients, develop and apply a unique genomics analysis pipeline to more than 250 patient samples, fulfill its mandate to deposit data in the public domain, and uphold its commitment to deliver high-quality, ethical care to its patients by giving the program more control over and visibility into all of its research practices.

Appistry nominated the NIH UDP for this award after a year-long collaboration with the program that began with the development of the genetic analysis pipeline included in UDPICS and continued into help deploying the full system across the institution. Since then, Appistry has worked to extend the functionality and capabilities of UDPICS beyond rare disease research to facilitate any patient-based translational research. The commercial version of the UDPICS, CloudDx Translational, is currently being demonstrated by Appistry in conjunction with Dell in Booth #417 at the Bio-IT World Conference and Expo.

“This award recognizes the outstanding achievement of many, many people at the NIH UDP and their aim of providing the very best care to those seeking help for intractable diseases,” said Cornelius F. Boerkoel, chief medical officer at Appistry and formerly of the NIH UDP. “The routine application of bedside-to-bench translational medicine to hundreds of individuals with distinct problems requires an infrastructure that provides tools for systematic data and process management and for constructing virtual communities comprising distributed cognitions. UDPICS does exactly that and has been refined and made accessible to all parties through CloudDx Translational.”

Since 2003, the Bio-IT World Best Practices Awards have highlighted outstanding examples of how technology innovations and strategic initiatives can be powerful forces for change in the life sciences, from basic biomedical research to drug development and beyond. More than 75 projects have been recognized. This year, UDPICS was among 22 finalists for the Best Practices Awards.

About Appistry

Appistry, Inc., helps clinical labs, research institutions, and hospitals capitalize on genomics data so that they can practice genomically enhanced medicine. Our world-class bioinformatics tools, cloud services, and software streamline the analysis of NGS data and make genome-scale data actionable in guiding research projects and informing clinical decisions. Learn more by connecting with Appistry on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.