A breakthrough image management platform for scientists

Curie-Cancer, the body responsible for developing Institut Curie's industry partnership activity, and Strand Scientific Intelligence, Inc. (Strand) announce the launch of the Curie Image Database (CID), a breakthrough image analysis and management platform that they developed jointly over the last two years at the Cell and Tissue Imaging Core Facility of the Institut Curie (PICT-IBiSA). 

CID was created using Strand’s award-winning Avadis(R) platform. It now enables over 250 scientists at Institut Curie and ten other collaborating institutions across Europe to effectively manage heterogeneous imaging data and complex analysis workflows. CID (or Avadis(R) iMANAGE outside the Institut Curie network) provides shared, secure and open access to image life cycle data as well as image analysis algorithms.
 
“Institut Curie’s expertise in advanced imaging platforms and Strand's ability to engineer superior scientific software have come together to create a scalable, secure and efficient ’open access‘ platform for microscopy images and analysis algorithms,” says Professor Vijay Chandru, co-founder and CEO of Strand. “We are excited by the launch of this platform at the world’s leading cancer research institute. Strand has built an advanced genome sequencing-based diagnostic platform for oncology. Going forward we would like to explore with Institut Curie an advanced decision support platform for oncologists that integrates genomic signatures of cancers and imaging data towards better diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients.”
 
“Our goal was not only to provide an image ‘management’ system but also an interactive research tool that allows data and analysis sharing for distant and multidisciplinary projects between teams from different labs and institutes that is able to handle the exponential growth and complexity of scientific and biomedical images generated by advanced microscopy systems,” says Jean Salamero, scientific director of Cell and Tissue Imaging Core Facility at Curie-Cancer.
 
“Funding through the France Bio-Imaging program and Canceropole-IdF, a French network of institutions dedicated to oncology, allowed us to link CID to a new and secure storage infrastructure and to promote access to image processing on dedicated clusters. Going forward, we would like to integrate this image database with other types of data, like genomic data or clinical and anatomy-pathological data related to clinical projects, resulting in an even more effective weapon in our fight against cancer.”
 
“Such a partnership project may ultimately help with the treatment of cancer. We are delighted to have contributed to the implementation of this technology developed by an international SME like Strand, whose roots are in India,” says Damien Salauze, director of Curie-Cancer. “This partnership embodies the principles of the Institut Carnot label which we were awarded by the French government in 2011 in recognition of our drive to provide genuine solutions for industry and ultimately for patients.”

About Curie-Cancer
Curie-Cancer is the body responsible for developing Institut Curie’s industry partnership activities. It oversees the institute’s existing industry partnerships as well as areas of high potential interest to industry partners. Institut Curie’s 1,200 researchers provide the high level of expertise in oncology required to collaborate with industry partners in creating and subsequently developing cancer therapies.
Curie-Cancer management has extensive industry experience and can call upon a vast pool of scientists involved in basic and clinical research. In 2011, Curie-Cancer was awarded the ‘Institut Carnot’ label by the French government, which recognizes excellence and involvement in research partnerships.
 
About Institut Curie
Institut Curie is a private foundation founded in 1909 by Marie Curie, the first female Nobel prize-winner and the first Nobel prize double-winner. It is the leading comprehensive cancer center (combining research and patient care) in Europe. Institut Curie’s research center and hospital employ some 3,200 scientists, physicians, nurses, technicians and administrative staff. The institute’s current objectives include increasing the proportion of research programs carried out in partnership with industry so that research results can lead to faster availability of products and services for the benefit of patients. The ‘Cell and Tissue Imaging Core Facility of the Institut Curie' gathers highly sophisticated equipment and up-to-date technologies in advanced microscopy in order to provide a workflow of state-of-the-art imaging technologies to hundreds of internal and external users.

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About Strand Scientific Intelligence, Inc.
Strand Scientific Intelligence, Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Strand Life Sciences (Strand), a privately held company that has pioneered the practice of data science in life and health sciences. Strand's segue into life sciences was through informatics products and services for research biologists, chemists and toxicologists that combine advanced visualization, predictive systems modelling, data integration and scientific content management. Over 2,000 research laboratories worldwide (about 30 per cent of global market share) are licensees of Strand's technology products as are several leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Ranked in the top tier of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) informatics providers by Frost and Sullivan, Strand is a portfolio company of Biomark Capital Partners, a San Francisco based global fund for health and life sciences. By enhancing sequence-based diagnostics and clinical genomic data interpretation using a strong foundation of computational, scientific and medical expertise, Strand is bringing individualized medicine to the world.

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