Modernizing Clinical Trials: Digital Technologies and the Cloud
3
Published by FiercePharma
THE CHALLENGE OF GETTING
AND STORING DATA
Scientis t s in leading research labs s tr uggle with
ever yday disruptions due to a lack of technology
integration. Even in the most advanced labs, valuable
experimental data may only be stored on PCs or
ser vers at tached to research equipment, leaving it
vulnerable to being compromised or deleted. This
lack of protec tion may be due to the organization
failing to realize the value of its proprietary data. For
research labs to be successful, data should be viewed
as a new form of currency, which can continue to gain
value as new data streams are developed, and can
be used as a historical view to test new hypotheses
against. Securing this data is an investment in the
future value it can of fer to your research, and your
organization as a whole.
Moving data to the cloud is an obvious solution,
but few instrument s are built to be cloud native,
presenting a challenge for scientists who hope to easily
assemble and integrate data. AWS DataSync offers a
way around this roadblock, ensuring that impor tant
experimental data is automatically copied from the
file systems that instruments write to, and securely
store and archive it in the AWS Cloud. With the data
in the cloud, researchers can begin to analyze their
critical research in minutes, and can even automate
work flows to initiate analy tics or archival tasks as
soon as the data arrives.
"Without the data in AWS, there's no way we could
innovate as fast. The AWS portfolio of hybrid storage
and trans fer ser vices wor ks with my exis ting lab
computing environments and processes and helps us
get our irreplaceable data safely into AWS, where our
scientists can use it for whatever they need: machine
learning, data analy tics, or HPC," said Lance Smith,
Direc tor of Research Computation at Celgene.
2
Not only is data stored more securely in the cloud,
but storing data in this way also prevents accidental
loss due to equipment malfunc tion. Data stored on
the instruments or local ser vers may not be backed
up for an extended time, and power failure or damage
to these systems can result in loss of valuable data.
Housing data in the cloud c an create automatic
backups, taking the responsibility for archiving data
away from the researcher.
Looking for ward, new instrument s on the market
are working to integrate data seamlessly, including:
• BaseSpace Sequence Hub from Illumina, which
allow s an enc r y pte d f low of dat a f rom t he
instrument to an AWS Cloud-based app to make
collaboration and data processing faster and
easier.
3
• Ther mo Fisher Connec t, which connec t s lab
equipment, automates data backup, integrates
with lab management sof t ware, and can aler t
scientists working remotely.
4
Another common challenge researcher's face is to
integrate data taken from instruments made by a
range of manufac turers. Produced in a disparate
2 Duso, Wayne, "E xpanding AWS Hybrid Cloud Capabilities with
Block Storage on Snowball Edge." AWS Storage Blog, April 29,
2019. ht tps://aws.amazon.com/blogs/storage/expanding-aws-
hybrid- cloud- capabilities-with-block-storage - on-snowball-
edge/
3 Illumina BaseSpace Sequence Hub. Available at ht tps://
w w w.illumina.com/produc t s/by-t ype/informatic s-produc t s/
basespace -sequence -hub.html
4 Digital Science | Thermo Fisher Scientific US. Available at
ht tps://w w w.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/digital-science.html
Housing data in
the cloud can
create automatic
backups, taking
the responsibility for archiving
data away from the researcher.
