Media Release

Melbourne Project Reaches New Frontier in Medical Research   
 
2 September 2005 
 
An unprecedented level of collaboration is set to speed insights into a number of diseases for Melbourne medical researchers.

With the help of a $4.3 million federal government grant, the technologically sophisticated  Bio21 Molecular Medicine Informatics Model (Bio21:MMIM) project will allow researchers to access the work of their peers through an integrated database.

The project will help provide improvements for individual patient care and for validating new protocols for the management of patients with a range of illnesses.

The database already contains clinical research data and tissue bank and genetic information on colorectal cancer, epilepsy and diabetes allowing researchers and medical professionals from Melbourne Health, Western, Austin and Alfred hospitals, Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, The Alfred Hospital and Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research access to each other's work.

In the coming months, the database will be expanded to include more Victorian and interstate research groups, and to increase the number of diseases available. And steps are underway to involve international research studies.

New partners in the project will be Monash University, St Vincent's Hospital, Menzies Centre for Population Research and Royal Hobart Hospital in Tasmania, The Royal Children's Hospital and Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Neurosciences Victoria as well as the Cabrini, Epworth and Freemasons hospitals.

The expansion will be managed by Melbourne University's Department of Medicine (The Royal Melbourne Hospital/Western Hospital), and is being led by Melbourne Health in partnership with Victorian Partnership of Advanced Computing (VPAC).

'Through this project, medical researchers will be able to link and map records, tissue banks, images, clinical data and genetic data across common diseases such as epilepsy, diabetes, colorectal cancer, multiple sclerosis, stroke, Parkinson's Disease, prostate cancer cystic fibrosis and asthma in ways that were not previously possible,' said Dr Peter Gibbs, medical oncologist at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and research Fellow at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research.

'Using a sophisticated information technology platform and advanced computing techniques, researchers will have unprecedented tools at their disposal to help identify factors, or combinations of factors, that predict treatment outcomes and identify drug responses,' he said.

Authorised researchers will be able to:

• Conduct research with confidence that ethics, privacy, security and internet protocol (IP) issues are addressed
• Test multiple hypotheses without collecting their own data
• Identify patients suitable for clinical trials based on clinical information or genetic profile
• Research suitable pre-symptomatic testing and early intervention based on genotype data
• Research genetic factors that may influence treatment outcome, with respect to toxicity and potential benefit
• Analyse summary/statistical information across institutions and from diverse databases
• Join the platform to add new data sources - nationally as well as linking internationally.

Dr Gibbs said expansion of the project internationally was also on the cards, with discussions now taking place on collaborative studies with epilepsy and oncology researchers in the United States and Europe.