Research Informatics Support for NICHD's Division of Intramural Research
- Ryan Dale, MS, PhD, Scientific Information Officer, Head, Computer Support Services Core
- Xinlian Liu, PhD, Deputy Scientific Information Officer
- Asma Idriss, PMP, MS, Program Manager
- Patricia Pullen, MBA, Project Manager
- Sean Ivusic, MS, Database Support Lead
- Kesa Koresko, MS, Senior DB/BI Specialist
- Loc Vu, BS, Lead Software Engineer
- Matt Breymaier, BS, Senior Bio/Application Software Engineer
- Louis Battuello, PMP, BS, Subject Matter Expert
- Nareg Bakirci, MS, Website Developer
- Nicki Swan, BA, Graphic Designer
- Rana Alneaimy, MD, Documentation Specialist
- Audrey Harrell, MS, Documentation Specialist
- Nick Pirolli, MS, Documentation Specialist
- Tamara Prodanov, MD, Documentation Specialist
- Jennifer Walling, MS, Documentation Specialist
- Kelly Colligan, BS, Information Specialist
- Kami Emanuel, Information Specialist
- Breanna McGriff, BS, Information Specialist
- Vida Bayat Mokhtari, MD, Information Specialist
- George Tran, Information Specialist
- Meinhart T. Vallar, BS, Information Specialist
- Louis Battuello, BS, Data SME
- Jeremy Swan, BS, Web Developer
- Nicholas Piegari, BS, Web Developer
The Computer Support Services Core (CSSC) facility provides informatics and research services to intramural investigators of the Division of Intramural Research (DIR), NICHD, in the following key areas: core IT support, clinical informatics, custom software development for scientific and administrative support, and biological visualization services.
Core IT services
During the past year, the CSSC continued supporting reliable, secure, and efficient information technology solutions. This includes acquisition, maintenance, and support for licensed software used by our DIR research community, e.g., GraphPad Prism, Amira, DNASTAR Lasergene, MathWorks MATLAB, SnapGene, FlowJo, and Biorender, as well as cross-platform desktop, server, and application hosting in the Rock Spring and Bldg. 35 Data Centers. We also assist users in identifying, researching, and purchasing custom hardware configurations to match research instrument requirements.
The addition of a new Deputy Scientific Information Officer in 2023 enabled CSSC to expand support and collaboration. This included piloting backup and storage initiatives with NICHD's Information Resources Management Branch (IRMB), establishing routine meetings with NICHD's scientific technical support team, enhanced outreach to intramural investigators and to peers in other institutes, participation in NIH–wide working groups, improved handling of scientific software license management, and building capacity for intramural security.
Clinical informatics
In the past year, CSSC initiated a modernization effort, implementing multi-factor authentication, starting to shift from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud for CSSC non-clinical applications, and planning to upgrade the remaining hardware for the on-premises infrastructure.
CSSC continued to support and develop applications related to clinical and translational medicine, including the Clinical Trials Database (CTDB) project. Such informatics tools allow researchers to design, collect, and report clinical observations related to natural history and interval-based studies. The total number of protocols and research projects supported by the CTDB team for 15 NIH institutes increased to 751 studies. The Global Question Library expanded to over 283,000 research questions. Our software development group completed two CTDB releases. Features included improvements on the e-binder module, Forms module, and Samples module. We supported the Clinical Trial Survey System (CTSS), an application for patient self-reporting, servicing 84 active protocols. The team completed one CTSS release and, in its continuing effort to modernize, rolled out all 84 active CTSS redesigned websites. CTDB application also supports the NICHD Office of Clinical Director (OCD) central biorepository and eligibility monitoring; the CTDB team supports NICHD OCD with customized report integrating with eligibility monitoring workflow. Through the global library in CTDB, several institutes are tracking research teams' CVs, trainings, and certificate documentation. In the past year, the CTDB team continued to support NICHD's DIPHR (Division of Population Health Research), and, after a multi-year effort building the Study of Pregnancy and Neonatal Health protocol, it was pushed to a pilot phase. Since this project's inception, data from CTDB supported over 1,500 NICHD publications.
The database development and reporting team continued data integrations with other NIH institutes and the Clinical Center's BTRIS (Biomedical Translational Research Information System) and CRIS (Clinical Research Information System). The team worked with NHBLI CMRCoop (Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Cooperative) system and continued to work with various NIMH systems to incorporate data from these systems into the CTDB data-reporting environment. The team is working towards integrating the NIH Toolbox system used by investigators at NIMH. We continued supporting data marts as new reporting requirements appear and migrating data as needed. The team added extract data from NIH's Center for Information Technology's BTRIS to support investigators research in addition to migrating data into the data mart from various external research organizations (MedStar, Inova, John Hopkins, etc.). The team implemented scoring via the CTDB interface that automates the scoring for this instrument. The team successfully upgraded the Cognos reporting environment to IBM Cognos Cognos 11.2.2, and they plan to implement a new authentication mechanism for Cognos (OIDC). Additionally, the team has worked closely with various PIs across institutes to provide both management- and research-related reports for clinically related studies, publishing 510 reports in the past year. The team applied the latest patches to all production database environments to ensure continued uninterrupted services, and it monitors the successful completion of backup and data mart transformation services. Over the past year, the team planned and worked towards upgrading the hardware environment to a new Solaris host and Oracle 19c.
Custom software development for scientific and administrative support
The CSSC provides custom software development for the DIR's scientific and administrative community.
We continued to enhance the Manuscript Tracking System (MTrac), a web-based application that automates the clearance and approval process for manuscripts in the DIR.
The DIRweb application supports several activities: the NICHD Annual Report, PI and Fellows' retreats, training tracking, Fellows’ progress reports, and Administrative Management Branch's (AMB) personnel and travel-package tracking. The DIRweb includes lab training web services for the NIH Enterprise Directory and Division of Occupational Health and Safety Training.
The team continued to release enhancements to the Fellows Annual Progress Report, a unified means for tracking and mentoring intramural trainees as well as for easing the re-appointment process. This solution provided the Office of Education with useful metrics regarding mentoring and training programs. We also updated the Exit Survey feature, a short survey giving DIR Fellows a platform for providing feedback.
We continued to develop new features and improvements for the Package Tracking module used by the AMB, providing AMB staff real-time accuracy metrics for personnel and travel package compilation.
The team has also improved upon the Capital Equipment/Expenditure Request Tracking System, which allows users to efficiently submit requests through the review process, while giving administrative staff the ability to track requests through the workflow process. Additional features allow administrative staff to process and track requests after approval and funding. The project has been sufficiently well received to allow potential offerings to the NICHD extramural community as well as to the Office of the Director.
The CSSC team continued maintenance of Cost Tracker, an application that permits capturing, organizing, and reporting various expenses on a per-protocol basis. The work is done closely with the OCD to improve protocol cost vs. effectiveness and provides a protocol-cost estimator module.
The CSSC team continues to develop and support several feedback systems to support real-time customer satisfaction collection. These include surveys for the AMB, the OCD, laboratory administrative support staff, and NICHD’s Administrative Services Branch. The system also offers more detailed feedback submissions periodically along with comprehensive response metrics than was previously possible. Along with application development, maintenance, and support, the CSSC team successfully migrated infrastructure and applications to Azure Cloud using NIH STRIDES (Science and Technology Research Infrastructure for Discovery, Experimentation, and Sustainability), one of the first organizations to do so.
Biological visualization services
The CSSC team provided DIR laboratories with scientific communications and media services, including publication support and website support. Those services were provided to: The NICHD DIR Annual Report, the DIR Annual Fellows Retreat, the DIR Annual Scientific Retreat, and the NICHD research labs and medical training programs. For intramural labs, we created scientific figures and illustrations for publication in medical and scientific journals. We supported the NICHD Office of Education by producing a monthly newsletter, The NICHD Connection, in collaboration with Intramural Fellows, the monthly Scientific Director's Bulletin for staff, and promotional posters and graphics for sponsored events. We continued maintaining websites for the NICHD DIR Annual Report and DIR Annual Fellows Retreat. The CSSC continued to provide a platform for conducting scientific review by the Board of Scientific Counselors, administrative intranet support, and business operations.
Additional Funding
- The Clinical Trials Database (CTDB) project receives funding from other NIH Intramural Institute or Center programs, including NHLBI, NIMH, NIDCR, NIEHS, NIAMS, NINDS, CC, NINR, NIDCD, NHGRI, NCCIH, NIMHD, and NIDDK.
Collaborators
- Richard Childs, MD, Clinical Director, NHLBI, Bethesda, MD
- Robert Colbert, MD, PhD, Pediatric Translational Research Branch, NIAMS, Bethesda, MD
- Maryland Pao, MD, Clinical Director, NIMH, Bethesda, MD
- Forbes D. Porter, MD, PhD, Section on Molecular Dysmorphology, Bethesda, MD
- Jack Yanovski, MD, PhD, Section on Growth and Obesity, NICHD, Bethesda, MD
Contact
For more information, visit https://www.nichd.nih.gov/about/org/dir/osd/cf/ucss.
