Roswell Park Cancer Institute Licenses LabVantage’s Sapphire™ To Realize the Promise of Translational Research

Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) has licensed LabVantage's Sapphire Laboratory Information Management Suite, including LabVantage's Sapphire BioBanking Module, as the cornerstone of its enterprise-wide translational research initiative. A public benefit corporation that is partially funded by New York State, RPCI is a comprehensive cancer center, providing cancer treatment, research and teaching facilities located in Buffalo, New York, and is a member of the prestigious National Comprehensive Cancer Network.

To achieve translational research, the lines of demarcation between the clinic and research data must be removed, while strenuously protecting patient personal information. Too much knowledge is bottled up within each data silo within the organization. Using Sapphire, RPCI will remove the current departmental data silos by integrating the biorepositories with the core research laboratories and interfacing with disparate clinical systems. With NCI's caBIG initiative as a guide, RPCI and its partners will use Sapphire to query across the RPCI enterprise providing meaningful results to researchers and clinicians to realize the promise of translational research.

"The vision is to have Roswell biobanks act as the 'sanctioned pathway' between the hospital/clinic and research, maintaining compliance with NCI's Guidelines for NCI-Supported Biorepositories," states JoAnne Ruh, VP of Information Technology for RPCI. "By moving aggressively to eliminate 'islands of knowledge,' Sapphire will enable RPCI to accelerate research through the power of collaborative research," she added.

LabVantage is extremely excited to assist RPCI's future break-through research efforts, enabling translational medicine and bolstering its reputation as a preeminent cancer institute," says Jim Aurelio, President of LabVantage.

This is a large-scale project that will ultimately touch every part of Roswell Park's enterprise, from the clinic to the research side. It encompasses more than twelve core laboratories and four biobanks, including several from the University of Buffalo's Center of Excellence co-located at Roswell Park. After a lengthy review of numerous competing laboratory information management systems (LIMS) and biobank software packages, RPCI selected LabVantage's Sapphire. "Sapphire is designed to address the distinct challenges of translational medicine," explains David Manning, Research Applications Administrator for RPCI. Manning elaborates, "It provides for data capture, information management, storage, and compliance features on a flexible and open enterprise platform. One example of this is that Sapphire will allow RPCI to import and instantiate multiple data dictionaries creating and enforcing a common syntax that will eventually optimize queries across the Institute."