National Cancer Institute caBIG® Community Program

One of the newest initiatives created by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the caBIG community. Shorthand for cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid, caBIG is intended to be a free and open network that allows the global cancer community to connect and share information.

Mission and Goals

The mission of caBIG, as listed on the NCI website, is "to develop a truly collaborative information network that accelerates the discovery of new approaches for the detection, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer, ultimately improving patient outcomes."

In conjunction with this overall mission, the NCI's goals for the program include:

Provide a shareable and interoperable portal that allows scientists and medical experts to easily connect and share knowledge
Create a standard set of rules and familiar language to facilitate information exchange
Develop tools that improve the speed and integrity of collecting, analyzing, integrating and disseminating cancer care and research information

History of caBIG

caBIG was initially introduced in February of 2004. The initiative was, and continues to be, supervised by the Center for Bioinformatics and Information Technology (CBIIT). In the beginning, the goal was simply to collect cancer-related information throughout the country and other specialized areas from members of the cancer community.

In the first several months, much work went into designing a functional network that was both functional and malleable enough to change as new information became available. Overtime, the success of that accompanied the original goal allowed caBIG to grow even bigger and encompass a broader range of goals.

Today, more than 1,000 individuals are part of the caBIG community. Over 200 organizations routinely use the resources made available by the initiative, including more than 50 cancer centers.

caBIG Philosophy

In order to promote widespread use, caBIG has instituted several philosophical guidelines regarding the resources they provide. These include:

Local control: though all caBIG software and resources are broadly distributed and interlinked, each individual institution retains local control over the management of their own information
Open development: all tools provided by caBIG are created through an open process
Open access: All tools and software are provided free of charge to anyone in the cancer community
Open source: source code of all caBIG software is readily viewable and alterable so that organizations can tailor the tools to their own specific needs

The Role of Workspaces

The caBIG community is organized into numerous virtual teams, called workspaces. Each workspace works together to develop insights and tools for a specific area of interest. Three categories of caBIG workspaces exist:

Domain workspaces: groups interested in a specific cancer topic, including integrative cancer research, clinical trial management, in vivo imaging and tissue banks.
Cross-cutting workspaces: groups such as Architecture and Vocabularies & Common Data Elements that are focused on streamlining interoperability
Strategic-level workspaces: groups such as Data Sharing, Strategic Planning and Documentation & Training that are responsible for all-encompassing issues that relate to all workspaces

caBIG members communicate within and across each workspace through a variety of means. These include online LISTSERVS, teleconferences, face-to-face meetings, town hall meetings and an annual community meeting.

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