IDASH - integrating data for analysis, anonymization, and sharing
- Copyright: J Am Med Inform Assoc 2012;19:196e201. doi:10.1136/amiajnl-2011-000538
- Authors: Lucila Ohno-Machado,Vineet Bafna, Aziz A Boxwala, Brian E Chapman, Wendy W Chapman, Kamalika Chaudhuri, Michele E Day,Claudiu Farcas,4 Nathaniel D Heintzman, Xiaoqian Jiang, Hyeoneui Kim,1Jihoo Kim,Michael E Matheny,Frederic S Resnic,Staal A Vinterbo,and the iDASH team
Abstract
iDASH (integrating data for analysis, anonymization,and sharing)is the newest National Center for Biomedical Computing funded by the NIH. It focuses on algorithms and tools for sharing data in a privacy-preserving manner. Foundational privacy technology research performed within iDASH is coupled with innovative engineering for collaborative tool development and datasharing capabilities in a private Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-certified cloud. Driving Biological Projects, which span different biological levels (from molecules to individuals to populations) and focus on various health conditions, help guide researchvand development within this Center.
Furthermore,training and dissemination efforts connect the Center with its stakeholders and educate data owners and data consumers on how to share and use clinical and biological data. Through these various mechanisms, iDASH implements its goal of providing biomedical and behavioral researchers with access to data, software, and a high-performance computing environment, thus enabling them to generate and test new hypotheses.
Mission
MISSION Although it has been 10 years since the publication of the first complete draft of the human genome,relatively few examples of scientific team effort have followed, in part due to inadequate computational environments that enable collaborative projects. iDASH (integrating data for analysis, anonymization, and sharing) was conceived as a computational collaborative environment that could fill gaps in the methods for accessing biomedical data, software, and sophisticated computational infrastructure (figure 1).
As a result, iDASH was designed to allow as many researchers as possible to leverage other researchers’ work and accelerate discoveries. Because a critical component of responsible data sharing is to preserve the privacy of individuals whose data are being shared, we have undertaken the challenge of developing a secure environment in which access is granted on the basis of privacy technology and policies that are enforced according to constraints imposed by laws and regulations, institutional policies, and data contributors.
