Although I work with my local Cancer Services Users' Group, and with Macmillan Cancer Voices, one of the most exciting things I'm involved with is the NCRI Informatics Initiative.
What is it?
Basically the Informatics Initiative is a "Google for Cancer". It enables researchers to look for resources in a wide range of areas, from molecular biology to clinical research. They can do complicated searches to find out, for example, if a particular protein of interest has had any clinical exposure.
Why is it important?
Because researchers in different parts of the world could be working on the same thing, and not know about each other's work.
A researcher may have done a study, but the results were not conclusive. By combining research from a number of studies, significant results might be obtained.
It encourages data-sharing, and early publication of results.
It encourages data standards, which makes it easier for researchers to find and catalogue data.
What's the problem
Its very time consuming writing adapters to enable one search engine to pass queries to lots of different databases. The resource catalogue is slow to fill. The funders want to see results, but until the Initiative has more funding, the full benefits will not be revealed.
What can I do?
Contact the main funders, Cancer Research UK, Wellcome and the Medical Research Council and encourage them to agree to continue funding the Initiative - sooner rather than later, as the staff are starting to leave because of the uncertainty due to the apparent lack of commitment by the funders.
