PrecisionFDA released in closed beta form
PrecisionFDA, an open-source cloud platform for genomic and bioinformatics information, has been released in a closed beta form by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The FDA plays an integral role in the White House's Precision Medicine initiative, according to information on the initiative's website. To accelerate progress towards this vision, in July, FDA’s chief health informatics officer (CHIO), Taha Kass-Hout, MD, began investigating the concept of a research and development portal that would allow community members to test, pilot and validate existing and new bioinformatics approaches for processing the vast amount of genomic data collected using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology.
After conducting market research, collaborating with FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health and assembling a project team, the precisionFDA project was initiated on July 22, with a scheduled beta launch date of December 15. Public rollout is scheduled for March 2016.
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.