Thomson Reuters Collaborates with One Mind for Research to Advance Traumatic Brain Injury Knowledge

Relationship will enable researchers to collaborate and share research results on one web platform

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Jun 12, 2013, 11:00 ET

PHILADELPHIA, June 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters, the world's leading provider of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced an extension of its relationship with One Mind^™ for Research to further the understanding of the central nervous system (CNS) and traumatic brain injuries (TBI) through tranSMART, an open source data sharing and analytics platform supported by the tranSMART Foundation.

One Mind is working with Thomson Reuters to implement tranSMART, to support the scientific community's need to share data, collaborate to improve diagnostics and discover more effective treatments for patients suffering from CNS- and TBI-related diseases. In the first stages of the project, the Thomson Reuters Life Sciences Professional Services team provided data curation and analysis for preparing and uploading TBI clinical data, performing preliminary data analyses and designing a workflow driven by clinical terminology.

In the next stage, the Thomson Reuters team will provide a broad spectrum of services to assist One Mind and its partners in using the platform as part of the One Mind Portal, including advanced bioinformatics analysis of the molecular data generated in TBI, clinical trials and a customization of tranSMART for an organization's information portals. Thomson Reuters and One Mind look to continue the relationship in the future for the development of the "Apollo Program," the One Mind Brain Data Exchange Portal.

"Web platforms like tranSMART are essential in advancing the work of our community's researchers, but there are many challenges in constructing and maintaining this type of tool and having it work in unison with the One Mind Portal in development," said Magali Haas, chief science and technology officer of One Mind for Research. "We are happy to be working with Thomson Reuters on this project. Their expertise and experience have been instrumental in helping craft tranSMART to fit the specific needs of our research community."

tranSMART is specifically designed to be an environment where life scientists and bioinformaticians can store patient data and correlate it with phenotypic data of clinical relevance, such as disease subtypes, drug response and survival expectancy. Researchers will then be able to use the platform to generate hypotheses on efficacy and toxicity biomarkers, novel drug targets, patient stratification for clinical trials, and other clinical applications.

"We are honored to work with One Mind on such a critical project," said Christopher McKenna, vice president of Thomson Reuters Life Sciences. "The expertise of our Life Sciences Professional Services team and our industry-leading ontology tools have placed us in a unique position to help create and maintain tranSMART's effectiveness as a valuable resource toward finding cures for CNS and TBI diseases."

Thomson Reuters Life Sciences Professional Services is a multi-disciplinary team of molecular biologists, bioinformaticians, medicinal chemists and IT engineers. Learn more about Thomson Reuters Life Sciences Solutions and projects in translational medicine.

One Mind for Research
ONE MIND is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to curing the diseases of the brain and eliminating the stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness and brain injuries. ONE MIND sponsors groundbreaking new research and creates portals to shared scientific data, leading to improved diagnostics, more effective treatments, and ultimately, cures for all types of mental illness and brain injury.

Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters is the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial and risk, legal, tax and accounting, intellectual property and science and media markets, powered by the world's most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minn., Thomson Reuters employs approximately 60,000 people and operates in over 100 countries. Thomson Reuters shares are listed on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges. For more information, go to www.thomsonreuters.com.

SOURCE Thomson Reuters