University of Ottawa Heart Institute, the University of Ottawa and McGill University launch ARCHIMEDES to advance health research in Canada

(Press-News.org) Researchers at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, the University of Ottawa and McGill University have launched ARCHIMEDES (Advanced Research Collaboration for Health Integration, Medical Exploration, and Data Synthesis), a national platform designed to give Canadian health researchers secure access to diverse health data, enable responsible data sharing across institutions and health data types, and support the development of advanced analyses, including AI algorithms. 

Health research in Canada is often slowed by fragmented data systems, lengthy approval processes to transfer data, and limited mechanisms for secure cross-institutional collaboration. As a result, valuable health research data remains siloed, projects are delayed, and discoveries take longer to reach and benefit patients. ARCHIMEDES was created to address these barriers by bringing health research data from across Canada together within a centralized, ethically governed environment that also enables high-performance computing and analytics.

The platform will provide access to multi-modal data, including behavioural data, imaging, genomics, and biospecimens. Through a secure two-tier access model, researchers can determine how their data is shared, supporting both collaboration and ethical compliance and enabling compliance with new Tri-Council data management policies.

“Too often, important health research data sits in separate systems that don’t easily connect,” said Kelly Cobey, PhD, co-chair of ARCHIMEDES, who is a scientist at the Ottawa Heart Institute and an Associate Professor at uOttawa's Faculty of Medicine. “ARCHIMEDES provides a platform for researchers to share their data and for it to be combined with other datasets. ARCHIMEDES will allow researchers in Canada to work together more efficiently, to drive benefits for existing data, all while keeping public trust at the centre of everything we do.”

The platform’s rigorously developed data governance framework and rollout of a data access committee to oversee data contribution and sharing will ensure compliance with bioethical and privacy best practices. Researchers can combine datasets, explore trends, and analyze data using advanced tools, including AI-driven analytics, predictive modelling, and data visualization.

“By removing barriers to accessing and combining complex datasets, ARCHIMEDES provides a powerful tool for researchers to accelerate collaboration and turn data into real-world health discoveries that benefit Canadians,” said Jodi Edwards, PhD, co-chair of ARCHIMEDES, who is scientific director of the Data Science Centre at the Ottawa Heart Institute and Associate Professor at uOttawa's Faculty of Medicine.

"ARCHIMEDES represents an exciting vision for capturing a wide range of data types for any health condition. It allows researchers to better understand the mechanisms of disease and develop more effective treatments,” said Dr. Alan Evans, OC, PhD, a professor at McGill University and co-chair of ARCHIMEDES. “Building upon world-leading data platforms originally developed for brain research, ARCHIMEDES has been generalized for application to all disease domains and other health sectors of central importance for Canadians."

ARCHIMEDES is a partnership between the Ottawa Heart Institute, McGill University, and the University of Ottawa, with funding from the Brain-Heart Interconnectome Research Program through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.

The University of Ottawa’s Institute of Mental Health Research will be the first user of ARCHIMEDES and will contribute high-priority mental health data to the platform.

Additional registered access datasets will be available in upcoming platform phases. For more information, visit the ARCHIMEDES website.

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