Track 4 explores the technology and tools that are used to connect data, applications, people, processes, and partners to ensure available, reliable, and actionable information for scientific decision making. Case studies will be presented that address how life science organizations address common problems in utilizing data, including analytics, methods and standards, using open source, semantic technology, using in-house vs. customized commercial platforms, transparency, efficiency, security, and cost-effective solutions.

Tuesday, May 23

7:00 am Workshop Registration and Morning Coffee

8:00 – 11:30 Recommended Morning Pre-Conference Workshops*

12:30 – 4:00 pm Recommended Afternoon Pre-Conference Workshops*

(W11) Scientific Project Management

* Separate registration required.

2:00 – 6:00 Main Conference Registration Open

4:00 PLENARY KEYNOTE SESSION

5: 00 – 7:00 Welcome Reception in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing

Wednesday, May 24

7:00 am Registration Open and Morning Coffee

8:00 PLENARY KEYNOTE SESSION

9:50 Coffee Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing

IMPROVING OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCIES IN THE LAB TO INCREASE DATA QUALITY THROUGH DIGITIZATION

10:50 Chairperson’s Remarks

Paul Denny-Gouldson, Vice Presdent, Strategic Solutions, IDBS

11:00 Internet-of-Things for Pharma R&D

Jim Bernhard, Scientist, Materials Discovery & Characterization, Vertex Pharmaceuticals

11:30 Challenges and Opportunities with Deploying Computerized Systems for Communication of Laboratory Critical Results: The View from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Milenko Tanasijevic, M.D., MBA, Vice Chair for Clinical Pathology and Quality, Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Director of Clinical Laboratories, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Associate Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School

Our research group has previously developed a unique computerized system to identify and communicate critical laboratory values to the covering physicians. The in-house developed system consisted of an event monitor that identified the events of interest in the laboratory and drug administration database, identified the specific caregiver responsible for the patient’s care contemporaneous with the triggering event, paged the caregivers and required an acknowledgement of the call on their part.

12:00 pm Managing Business Processes through Agile Project Methodology
Gurpreet Kanwar, MBA, PMP, Senior Project Manager, Information Management, NAV CANADA

12:30 Session Break

 12:40 Luncheon Presentation: Lab of the Future, Internet of Things & Machine Learning: A Pragmatic Approach

Jarrod Medeiros, Product Manager, IDBS

While the current technology landscape can seem impressive and alluring, the typical state of instrumentation and technology in an R&D lab is an ad hoc collection that spans decades. In this talk we will discuss how a pragmatic approach focused on business value can pave the road to operational efficiency, enhanced communication, and increased innovation in your R&D laboratory.

1:40 Session Break

DATA INTEGRATION & MODELING WITH SEMANTIC TECHNOLOGIES

1:50 Chairperson’s Remarks
Derek A. Debe, Ph.D., Senior Principal Scientist, Platform Informatics & Knowledge Management, Abbvie, Inc.

1:55 Semantic Searching and Linking of Related Information Sources in R&D with High Accuracy

Etzard Stolte, Ph.D., Global Head, Knowledge Management, Roche

Thousands of users leverage Hoffman-La Roche’s semantic platform to, for example, federate related search results across document management systems, find internal experts, visually explore concept evolution, or enrich documents on the fly with related numerical and high-dimensional data. This talk presents our learnings and real world requirements to develop such a semantic search and integration platform, while maintaining speed and high relevance.

2:25 Allotrope Foundation: A Framework for Simplified Data Integrity, Reproducibility and Data Management through Improved Data Modeling with Semantic Technologies

Dana Vanderwall, Ph.D., Director, Biology & Preclinical IT, Discovery Information Technologies, R&D IT, Bristol-Myers Squibb
Allotrope Foundation has built a framework comprised of: an open, standards-based, extensible file format; ontologies and semantic models to provide controlled vocabulary for R&D applications; APIs to facilitate consistent adoption of the standards. This talk covers current data integration and management challenges, the Framework architecture, examples of how the Framework is currently used in the Pharmaceutical industry, and the roadmap for ongoing development and releases.

2:55 Key Software Interconnections between Data Sources and Decision Makers

Graham McGibbon, Manager, Strategic Partnerships and Scientific Solutions, Advanced Chemistry Development (ACD/Labs)

Andrew Anderson, Vice President, Innovation & Informatics Strategy, Advanced Chemistry Development (ACD/Labs)

Reliable foresight depends upon knowledge, which supposes coherent assembly and presentation of information. People attempting to assess the value and risk of particular work products need software applications and interfaces that allow communication between discrete data sources because evaluations are often of comprehensive material characterization. Software can construct layers of data with interpreted meaning aiding determination of suitability for use.

3:10 Integration from the Ground Up: Transforming Biologics R&D Informatics with Benchling

Sajith Wickramasekara, Founder and CEO, Benchling

Most R&D processes are scattered across disparate software. Benchling unifies experiment workflows, ensuring that cutting-edge science is never held back by obsolete software. In this talk, we will describe how we worked with scientists to empower them to streamline biologics R&D workflow on a single platform.

3:25 Refreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing

ENTERPRISE APPLICATIONS

4:00 New Middleware Concepts for Enterprise Applications

Nathan McBride, Senior Vice President & CIO, Innovation Architects, AMAG Pharmaceuticals

4:30 Amgen Research Connected Data Landscape – Enabling Self-Service Knowledge Discovery

Wolfgang Hoeck, Ph.D., Senior Manager, Amgen, Inc.
Filip Pattyn, Ph.D. Scientific Lead, Product Manager, ONTOFORCE

This talk will explain how enhancing the findability of research data (and more) is done at Amgen using a linked data approach. The goal of this session is to explain and discuss the value of how a connected data landscape enables researchers in early drug discovery research. We will start with a quick live demo of the open access linked data platform DISQOVER containing +120 public data sources. The main part of this session will be dedicated to explaining how Amgen collaborated with Ontoforce to implement DISQOVER by combining internal and external data via cloud-based data federation, thereby empowering the transition from a system/application focus to a (linked) connected data focus. Items covered are federated semantic search, scalability, implementation speed, user adoption and the value of an optimized user experience combined with a compelling UI. We end with the challenges ahead and time is reserved to discuss Amgen’s linked data landscape approach and value.

5:00 Team Productivity Reimagined: Abbvie's Knowledge Notebook and Dash Collaboration Platforms
Derek A. Debe, Ph.D., Senior Principal Scientist, Platform Informatics & Knowledge Management, Abbvie, Inc.

5:30 – 6:30 15th Anniversary Celebration in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing and Best of Show Awards

Thursday, May 25

7:00 am Registration Open and Morning Coffee

8:00 PLENARY KEYNOTE SESSION & AWARDS PROGRAM

8:05 Benjamin Franklin Awards and Laureate Presentation

8:35 Best Practices Awards Program

8:50 Plenary Keynote

9:45 Coffee Break in the Exhibit Hall and Poster Competition Winners Announced

COLLABORATIVE SCIENCE: PLATFORMS & SOFTWARE TOOLS FOR DECISION MANAGEMENT & DATA SHARING

10:30 Chairperson’s Remarks
Christopher Southan, Ph.D., Database Curator, IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLGY, University of Edinburgh

10:40 Software Facilitated Collaboration through Cognitive Networks: Connecting Data and Researchers for Big Discoveries

David King, Founder, Exaptive

Kristophe Diaz, Ph.D., Scientific Program Manager, Cohen Veterans Bioscience, Inc.

There is increasing agreement in the scientific community that the difficult problems we are attempting to solve today will not be solved by a single researcher or single lab, but will require coordinated collaborative effort across larger teams of increasing heterogeneity. This talk explores a new approach to data analytics called the “cognitive network”, an important perspective to software architecture for facilitating innovation at a broader level.

11:10 AbbVie Unite: A Connected Enterprise of Ideas, Projects, People and Medicine

Abhik Seal, Senior Scientist, Platform Informatics and Knowledge Management, AbbVie, Inc.

Rishi Gupta, Senior Research Scientist, Platform Informatics and Knowledge Management, AbbVie, Inc.

The drug discovery landscape is evolving quite rapidly and dynamically. There is a growing demand to encourage individuals or functional groups in an organization to connect and communicate with peers, partners, and customers on the projects they are working on. Silo mentality has to be broken down for new discoveries, setting up effective collaboration and improving the overall efficiency of the organization. The UNITE platform is developed to address this current challenge of social collaboration and in order to connect people knowing their interest and scientific topics they may be working on. The platform is not only made for social collaboration but it has been extended for a better understanding of a disease and adverse effects. In this presentation, we will focus on the R Shiny based web application and provide ideas on how AbbVie is attempting to address this challenge.

11:40 Research Informatics: In silico Approaches for Early Assessment of Immunogenicity

Kevin Merlo, BioSafety Development Engineer, Dassault Systemes, BIOVIA

Immunogenicity, an immune response, can possibly reduce biotherapuetic treatment efficacy and provoke adverse effects. Predicting immunogenicity is proving difficult because of the complexity of the underlying biological processes. We present here an informatics application based on modeling and simulation approaches that can help the pharmaceutical R&D to prioritize promising drugs with respect to the immunogenicity risk

12:10 pm Session Break

 12:20 Luncheon Presentation I: Making Big Data Work for You

Stefan Olafsson, CEO, Twigkit

Big data technologies have profound implications for research, translational science and the ability to provide a 360° view across all your data. Unfortunately, many big data projects fail to deliver the promise; due to a lack of focus on the applications and the user experience meant to provide this single pane of glass. Find out how to easily change that.

12:50 Luncheon Presentation II (Sponsorship Opportunity Available) or Enjoy Lunch on Your Own

1:20 Dessert Refreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing

COLLABORATIVE SCIENCE: PLATFORMS & SOFTWARE TOOLS FOR DECISION MANAGEMENT & DATA SHARING

1:55 Chairperson’s Remarks
Kees van Bochove, CEO, The Hyve

2:00 Implementation of the pRED External Partner Tool for Decision Management of External Collaborations

Laura Aguiar, Ph.D., MBA, PMP, Head, pREDi NY Operations and Manager, Data Science Decision Support Service, Roche Innovation Center New York

Padmanabha Udupa, pRED Informatics, Roche Pharma Research and Early Development, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.

This talk describes attempts to eliminate duplication of efforts and costly oversights by streamlining access to data; increasing transparency across functions and DTAs; institutionalizing corporate memory on external activities and business decisions; and deploying a platform to manage external partner key entities/ relationships including institutions, contacts and opportunities.

2:30 Case Study: The Observational Health Data Sciences & Informatics (OHDSI) Collaborative

Alan Andryc, Technology Manager, Data Sciences, The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson

Kristin Feeney, MPH, Senior Data Scientist I, ConvergeHEALTH by Deloitte

Kees van Bochove, CEO, The Hyve

Karthik Natarajan, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University

The OHDSI program is a multi-stakeholder, interdisciplinary collaborative to bring out the value of health data through large-scale analytics. This collaborate represents joined efforts of academia, pharmaceutical industry, and informatics companies to develop and leverage innovative methodologies and advanced analytics for real world observational health data and promote high quality evidence generation. All our solutions are open-source. OHDSI has established an international network of researchers and observational health databases with a central coordinating center housed at Columbia University. This talk presents our vision for high quality evidence generation through our commitment to open science and innovation leveraging open source tools, shared standards and technologies we are generating as a community. Come see how we are shifting the evidence paradigm in academia and industry. Join the journey.

4:00 Conference Adjourns