The National Institutes of Health has given $1.2 million to Indiana University researchers to build the ultimate international epidemic research tool.
Principle investigators Katy Börner, Steven J. Sherman, and Alessandro Vespignani will oversee the project, called Epidemics Cyber infrastructure, or EpiC. The cutting-edge research tool will make sharing and re-using epidemics research data as easy as sharing videos via YouTube.
"This project brings together a team of epidemics and computer science researchers to create an infrastructure that will allow researchers to 'plug and play' their datasets and software," says Börner, Victor H. Yngve associate professor of information science. "Ultimately we want to improve and facilitate data analysis."
Katy Börner
Vespignani explains that progress in the area of "biological and social contagion research" is difficult because the datasets and processes are often quite complex and require simultaneous analysis from different locations. EpiC, an open-source toolset, will allow for the easy exchange, combination, and application of data analysis capabilities, providing a kind of 'scholarly marketplace' for information sharing.
"Instead of sharing images or movies, scholars will use EpiC to share datasets, algorithms and any other items relevant to the study of epidemics," Vespignani says.
Börner is director of the Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center at the School of Library and Information Science. Vespignani is a professor of informatics and of cognitive science at IU Bloomington, and Sherman is Chancellor's Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at IU. Additional members of the team are IU researchers Duygu Balcan, Weixia Huang, and Bruce W. Herr.
Steven J. Sherman
EpiC will initially be maintained at IU Bloomington. A Web portal will allow scientists anywhere in the world to upload their epidemiological data for colleagues to see, but EpiC is more than a data repository. It will also provide services to researchers who may not have easy access to sophisticated analysis and visualization tools. The system will be designed to handle all sorts of epidemics, from the pathogen-based SARS to human behavioral epidemics.
"The study of epidemics is crucial for the understanding, prediction, and prevention of many phenomena affecting public health, such as infectious diseases, alcohol use, and smoking habits," says Vespignani. "EpiC will facilitate the multi-scale analysis of social data and their integration in systems dynamic modeling, agent-based modeling, and other simulation techniques for epidemic processes."
Alessandro Vespignani
"Once we can better understand and predict the spread of these kinds of behaviors, the next step is to develop programs and interventions that can lead to desirable health and mental health outcomes," Sherman says. "We believe that our project has important public health implications."
Börner, Vespignani, and their teams have worked together before. In 2005, they received a $1.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to build a similar tool for network scientists called "Network Workbench," online at http://nwb.slis.indiana.edu/. EpiC will build on this effort but will provide services specifically tailored to epidemiology.
In addition to facilitating research, EpiC may help others model contagion processes and identify epidemiological "hot spots" so that policymakers and public h ealth agencies can act in timely fashion.
