SARS Containment Aided by Computing Grid Technology

Originally Published MDDI August 2003

R&D DIGEST

The availability of data and links for effective communication is often critical to fighting the spread of disease. A current example is the research at the University of California, San Diego, which may help in the diagnosis and treatment of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). 

More than 8000 cases of SARS and 600 deaths have been reported since February to the World Health Organization. Taiwan has been one of the regions hardest hit by the disease. In their efforts to control the spread of SARS in the region, healthcare providers in Taiwan recognized the potential value of telescience technologies. Developed by affiliates of the University of California, San Diego's National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research (NCMIR), telescience essentially provides a computing grid to aid in sharing data and other information.

Taiwan's National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) is integrating hardware and software to aid physicians. The NCHC is also a participant in the Pacific Rim Applications and Grid Middleware Assembly (PRAGMA). The Taiwanese group has asked NCMIR for help in setting up a system that would allow real-time exchange of diagnostic information. The data to be traded includes numerical instrument readings, high-resolution x-rays, and audio/video discussions. 

The system also has to protect medical professionals from SARS exposure. Several hospitals already had been quarantined because of SARS outbreaks. The result was a gap in healthcare services that could have allowed the further spread of the virus. 

Mark H. Ellisman, PhD, PRAGMA affiliate and NCMIR director, perceived the situation as a beneficial application for NCMIR's telescience technologies, especially the telescience portal. He believes that the portal can provide an effective, reliable system for exchanging data within the medical community. 

Says Ellisman, “In conjunction with NSF's National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure [NPACI], NCMIR scientists are building an integrated environment, accessible through a Web interface—the telescience portal—where remote instrument control, grid computing, visualization software, and federated digital-image databases converge and are seamlessly orchestrated to provide a high-performance analysis environment for complex applications like electron tomography.” He adds, “We are pleased that we could extend our leading-edge research technologies to quickly assist with this critical health issue.” 

Since the Taiwanese request in June, NCMIR's computer scientists have been able to use the telescience portal architecture to build a preliminary SARS equivalent that will begin to address the needs of Taiwan's medical establishment. 

The telescience team is collaborating with scientists in Taiwan to install the custom portal on machines that will be used in the NCHC environment. This adapted SARS research portal provides users with access to NPACI's Storage Resource Broker, which is used for managing data between locations, and standard image-processing software for manipulating common radiology images. These resources will help the Taiwanese medical sector manage distributed patient data.

Copyright ©2003 Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry