CAMBRIDGE, Mass., and
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.,
and REDMOND, Wash., Jan. 11,
2021 /PRNewswire/ -- On Monday, Broad Institute of
MIT and Harvard, Verily, an Alphabet company, and Microsoft
Corp. announced a strategic partnership to accelerate new
innovations in biomedicine through the Terra platform. Terra,
originally developed by Verily and the Broad Institute, is a
secure, scalable, open-source platform for biomedical
researchers to access data, run analysis tools and collaborate.
Terra is actively used by thousands of researchers every month to
analyze data from millions of participants in important scientific
research projects.
Biomedical data are being generated and digitized at a
historic rate and are expected to reach dozens of exabytes by
2025 — including data from genomics, medical imaging, biometric
signals and electronic health records. Coupled with powerful
research and analysis tools, these datasets can
provide lifesaving insights into some of the world's most
pressing health issues. But making use of these important datasets
remains difficult for researchers who face huge, siloed data
estates, disparate tools, fragmented systems and data standards,
and varying governance and security policies.
The new partnership aims to break through those barriers by
bringing together Microsoft's cloud, data and AI technologies, and
global network of more than 168,000 health and life sciences
partners to accelerate development of global biomedical research
through the Terra platform, provide greater access and empower the
open-source community. Building on the open-source foundation of
Terra, the new collaboration will advance the ability of data
scientists, biomedical researchers and clinicians around the world
to collaborate in tackling some of the most complex and widespread
diseases facing society today.
The Broad-Verily-Microsoft partnership brings together leading
genomics and computer science researchers, data scientists and
technology experts to jointly deliver on the vision of the Terra
platform. Through the collaboration with Microsoft, the companies
will accelerate Terra's vision for health and life sciences
research by:
- Expanding on Terra's open, modular and interoperable research
platform, with the addition of the Microsoft Azure cloud, data and
AI technologies, and global capabilities
- Increasing Terra's accessibility to the more than 168,000
health and life sciences organizations partnering with Microsoft
around the world
- Enabling secure and authenticated access to distributed data
stores via collaborative workspaces
- Allowing access to a rapidly growing portfolio of open and
proprietary standards-based tools, best practices workflows and
APIs
- Enabling federated data analysis to uncover insights and build
novel analytical and predictive models while ensuring patient
privacy
- Creating a seamless and secure flow to speed the delivery of
data and insights between research and clinical domains
- Using open APIs and modular components to advance the
standards-based biomedical data ecosystem in line with the open,
compatible and secure approach to data developed by the Data
Biosphere and the responsible policies and technical standards
established by the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health
Commentary
Verily
"We're pleased to be working with Microsoft and
Broad on this initiative. Our three organizations share the goals
of improving patient care, driving innovation in biomedical
research, and lowering costs across healthcare and life
sciences," said Stephen Gillett, chief operating officer at
Verily. "This partnership combines multimodal data, secure
analytics and scalable cloud computing to improve insight and
evidence generation, allowing us to ultimately impact more
patients' lives."
Microsoft
"The opportunity to partner with the Broad
Institute and Verily in helping researchers around the world
understand and treat our toughest human diseases is an honor,"
said Gregory Moore, M.D., Ph.D., corporate vice president of
Microsoft Health Next. "Through this partnership, we will apply the
power of Microsoft Azure and its enterprise-grade capabilities in
security and privacy, along with cutting-edge data and AI solutions
like Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Machine Learning and Azure
Cognitive Services, to deliver on the vision of the Terra platform
at a new level of scale."
Broad Institute of MIT and
Harvard
"Terra simplifies the
process so researchers can analyze and share data they have
generated, and access and analyze data others have made
available without needing to duplicate datasets," said Eric S.
Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute of
MIT and Harvard. "As an interoperable, open-source system,
Terra is designed to work across many different types of biomedical
information — moving aside barriers to storage, permissions and
computing to enable collaboration and generate insights. We
are thrilled that Microsoft has joined the Terra community and,
through this collaboration, we will reduce many more barriers to
advancing science and medicine."
"Both Microsoft and Verily share our vision for Terra as an open
and collaborative ecosystem for the sharing and analysis of
biomedical data," said Clare
Bernard, senior director of the Broad Institute Data
Sciences Platform and product manager of the Terra platform. "This
partnership will allow us to make Terra even more useful and
accessible across a broader set of researchers and industries."
European Bioinformatics Institute
"Terra's adoption of
GA4GH standards is an important step forward," said Helen Parkinson, head of Molecular Archival
Resources at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). "By
following these standards, Terra supports modularity and
interoperability, which are key to creating a global and federated
data ecosystem."
About Terra
For more information about Terra, please
visit https://terra.bio. To learn more about the enterprise
offering, please go here.
About Verily
Launched in 2015, Verily is a subsidiary
of Alphabet focused on life sciences and healthcare.
The mission is to make the world's health data useful so that
people enjoy healthier lives. Verily develops tools and devices to
collect, organize and activate health data, and creates
interventions to prevent and manage disease. The organization
partners with leading life sciences, medical device and government
organizations, using deep hardware, software, scientific, and
healthcare expertise to enable faster development, meaningful
advances, and deployment at scale.
About Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard was
launched in 2004 to empower this generation of creative scientists
to transform medicine. The Broad Institute seeks to describe the
molecular components of life and their connections; discover the
molecular basis of major human diseases; develop effective new
approaches to diagnostics and therapeutics; and disseminate
discoveries, tools, methods, and data openly to the entire
scientific community.
Founded by MIT, Harvard, Harvard-affiliated hospitals, and the visionary
Los Angeles philanthropists
Eli and Edythe L. Broad, the Broad
Institute includes faculty, professional staff, and students from
throughout the MIT and Harvard biomedical research communities and beyond,
with collaborations spanning over a hundred private and public
institutions in more than 40 countries worldwide. For further
information about the Broad Institute, go to
http://www.broadinstitute.org.
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft)
enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud
and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and
every organization on the planet to achieve more.
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SOURCE Microsoft Corporation