MED-C, OCC to Establish Key Element in Unlocking Personalized Medicine

    CHICAGO, IL, September 27, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The Molecular Evidence Development Consortium (MED-C) and the Open Commons Consortium (OCC) have signed a memorandum of understanding to create the MED-C Biomedical Data Commons (BDC), which will allow the sharing of genetic and clinical data in a unified manner. Within a few years, the MED-C BDC is expected to be one of the largest genomic data commons, a key step toward the next stage of personalized medicine.

In order for precision medicine to fulfill its goal of providing the best possible treatment to each individual, it will require sufficient quantities of genomic data coupled with clinical outcomes. The new MED-C BDC will be a key contributor toward building an infrastructure to support the ambitious goals of personalized medicine.

"We are very pleased to be collaborating with MED-C to build this initiative. Not only will the MED-C BDC be one of the largest genomic commons, but it will share a common architecture and interfaces with other OCC projects so that researchers will have transparent access to a critical mass of genomic and associated clinical and outcome data," says Dr. Robert Grossman, director of the OCC. "Various OCC commons will be able to be interoperable in a secure, compliant and transparent fashion, which vastly expands data sharing and avoids the pitfalls inherent in data siloing. This is an exciting step forward in establishing datasets sufficient in magnitude to translate understanding of disease and cancer mutation into actionable patient insights."

"Vice President Biden has spearheaded the unifying of datasets to allow cancer research (the Moonshot Initiative) to rapidly advance. MED-C has built relationships, infrastructure and methods to implement what Vice President Biden has asked for and is committed to do this without federal funding," says Dr. Dane Dickson, founder and CEO of MED-C. "This relationship with OCC augments our ability to be the key component to unlocking personalized medicine. This relationship serves as an international model that conserves resources and dramatically advances science."

About the Molecular Evidence Development Consortium:
MED-C is a nonprofit organization unifying all key medical stakeholders to advance precision medicine through harnessing shared resources and providing mutual benefit. Its first project, the N1 Registry, is about to launch. It will contain standardized, high-quality, next-generation sequencing combined with clinical outcomes. For more information, visit www.med-c.org.

Contact: Lee Warnick, [email protected], 202-854-1670 or 202-800-0617

About the Open Commons Consortium:
The Open Commons Consortium (OCC) is a not-for-profit that manages and operates data commons and cloud computing infrastructure to support scientific, medical, health care and environmental research. OCC members span the globe and include over 30 universities, companies, government agencies and national laboratories. For more information, visit occ-data.org.

Contact: Walt Wells, [email protected]

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