Recombinant partners with U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in genomic research program

Recombinant Data Corp., a Massachusetts-based healthcare data warehousing and clinical intelligence solutions provider, today announced its continued contributions to innovative IT tools for clinical research, through the company's key role in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' Million Veteran Program (MVP). Under the leadership of VA's Office of Research and Development, Recombinant has partnered with MAVERIC, the VA's Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center in the development of the Genomic Informatics System for Integrative Science (GenISIS). GenISIS is the informatics platform for MVP, the VA's initiative launched nationally on May 5, 2011 to recruit one million military veterans to participate in clinical research, and to collect, manage and analyze genomic data on disorders of significance in veterans' health.

“Recombinant is pleased to support the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in its genomic research program”

Recombinant collaborated with the MAVERIC team to create a system to streamline and integrate key elements of large scale recruitment and enrollment of patients for GenISIS and MVP-communicating with veterans via mail and telephone call centers regarding MVP participation; scheduling research-related appointments in coordination with schedules maintained in VistA (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture), the VA's electronic medical record system; collecting and managing patients' research consent and initial clinical trial questionnaire data; and tracking tissue samples collected as part of the research enrollment process.

Recombinant and MAVERIC are continuing to work together on the next phases of GenISIS, which will include the clinical data warehouse integrating genomic data with the clinical data maintained in the VistA EMR, biorepository management, cohort discovery and hypothesis testing tools, and the genomics analysis framework. These are planned for completion later in 2011 and in 2012. In working with the MAVERIC team, Recombinant uses its Agile Iterative Development approach to rapid design and prototyping, and delivering production systems in a just-in-time mode to meet the project's requirements.

The overall goal of GenISIS and MVP is to create a patient recruitment infrastructure and data repository integrating genomic and clinical data, in support of the VA's research to understand the disease mechanisms involved in disorders of importance to veterans' health. In a 2008 survey of U.S. veterans, 83% favored creating a system like GenISIS, and 71% said they would definitely or probably participate.

"Recombinant is pleased to support the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in its genomic research program," said Peter Emerson, CEO of Recombinant Data Corp. "GenISIS is a beacon project that many other healthcare providers are looking to emulate, as it will establish a model for secure and efficient analysis of consented genotypic data to move towards the promise of genomics to deliver personalized medicine."