All-Ireland biomedical institute launched
06-03-2007
by Maxim Kelly

HP has joined forces with third-level colleges and the Irish government in a EUR30 million investment to create an all-Ireland Institute of Biomedical Informatics.

The IBI will conduct research into creating international standards in biomedical informatics, particularly in the sphere of genetic research. The institute will also be tasked with developing educational and training material to further develop knowledge on biomedical informatics for both the commercial and public sectors, as well as creating a commercial suite of services for the Irish health industry.

In a joint statement, the backers of the project said the IBI's objective was "to realise the ultimate goal of the 'post-genome' era -- to use genetic information to develop truly personalised life-long healthcare and to deliver 'my healthcare, my way'."

HP is the first industry partner in the group of backers which includes University College Dublin; the National University of Ireland, Galway; Trinity College, Dublin; Queen's University, Belfast; along with HP as the first industrial partner.

The Irish government is also supporting the project and Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment Micheal Martin said the initiative would be important for the health, life sciences and ICT industries.

"The formation of IBI complements our vision that Ireland will be internationally renowned for the excellence of its research and be at the forefront in generating and using new knowledge for economic and social progress within an innovation-driven culture," he said.

The IBI will be overseen by a board comprised of representatives from its founding partners and will collaborate with other academic and industrial partners to perform research in health informatics, bioinformatics, image analysis, and systems modelling.

It will be funded through a collaboration of public funding agencies and industrial partners. The Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET) and HP have already provided USD1 million funding to set up a scholarship programme.

"This is a very exciting development for HP and for Ireland. IBI will tackle some of the most important and difficult problems in biomedical informatics," said Jeff Miller, vice president of Health and Life Sciences at HP. "It represents one of HP's key international innovation hubs in health and life sciences, alongside Harvard Partners Centre for Genetics and Genomics in Boston, and Vital-IT in Switzerland. We look forward to working with our academic and industrial partners to ensure IBI's success," he said.