Researchers at Duke contributed to the development of two caBIG applications, the Cancer Central Clinical Database and the Cancer Central Clinical Participant Registry.

The latter application, a Web-based tool for managing clinical trials data across multiple cancer centers, can provide researchers with access to records about patients suffering from one of the new subcategories of cancer.

"Where I might see five patients a year with a particular disease, now I can see 50," Annechiarico said.

Duke is using the former application in a US$6.8 million research project, funded by the US Department of Defense's Breast Cancer Research Program, to study how genomic profiling can be used to guide treatment plans for women with newly diagnosed breast cancer, he added.

In addition to expanding access to specific data sets, caBIG can increase the safety of clinical trials for patients, noted Warren Kibbe, director of bioinformatics at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University in the US.

For example, he said, development of a caBIG clinical trials management application would allow researchers to determine the adverse effects of a single medication used in multiple clinical trials. "That is one example of how caBIG is starting to touch patients in a way that hasn't been possible," Kibbe added.

The open-source Patient Study Calendar application now in development at the center will be used for patients on clinical trials, he noted. Among other things, the application will be able to tell patients how much medication to take and when.

The single application could define patient management parameters, eliminating the problem caused when people with different types of training - a surgeon versus an oncologist, for example - may interpret rules differently, Kibbe said.

Implementing caBIG has not been without challenges, according to an NCI-commissioned review of the project that was released late last year.

The report found that over the life of the effort -- from 2003-2007 -- developers have not focused enough on the needs of end users, and have too often released buggy products.

Beutow said the report prompted the NCI to "redouble" its efforts to provide better technical support to users. The agency now sends updates on the program to user e-mail lists, has created Web sites with caBIG information, and launched a telephone help line to provide technical support to users.

Long Road Ahead

At the same time, the caBIG program is in the midst of an expansion to add links to the grid and its 40-plus applications to community health care providers. Sixteen have signed up to date to join the program.

And national cancer centers in the UK are in the process of building an infrastructure to become "caBIG-enabled," Beutow added.