i2b2 Foundation and tranSMART Foundation Merge to Become the i2b2 tranSMART Foundation

WAKEFIELD, MA--(Marketwired - May 25, 2017) - (Bio-IT World Conference & Expo 2017) - The tranSMART and i2b2 foundations today announce the completion of their merger to become the i2b2 tranSMART Foundation. The new organization is a global non-profit open-source foundation facilitating the further development of precision medicine and bringing it to practice. 

The mission of the i2b2 tranSMART Foundation is to enable effective collaboration for precision medicine through the sharing, integration, standardization, and analysis of heterogeneous data from healthcare and research; through engagement and mobilization of a life sciences focused open-source, open-data community.

Keith Elliston, Ph.D."The realization of precision medicine will transform the healthcare industry and dramatically improve the lives of every patient," said Keith Elliston, Ph.D., executive director of the i2b2 tranSMART Foundation. "We believe that by coming together into one single organization, we can link clinical research and translational research through our open-source platforms and our active community of scientists and technologists to enable and accelerate innovation in precision medicine. We believe that the most viable business model for developing the big data infrastructure needed for precision medicine is the open-source model; and the i2b2 tranSMART Foundation is leading this effort."

Dr. Elliston assumes the role of executive director for the new organization, while Diane Keogh, previous executive director of the i2b2 Foundation, is the VP of operations for the new Foundation. The rest of the management team, as well as the new board of directors, consists of individuals from both the tranSMART and i2b2 foundations. 

Diane KeoghThe i2b2 tranSMART Foundation is governed by its members, a self-directing group of individual Foundation stakeholders that have been selected based on individual contributions to the Foundation and the community, and who help guide the Foundation in fulfilling its mission. The Foundation has also established a Partnership Program to engage the corporate, non-profit and academic communities to advise, sponsor and participate in the development of the projects being executed by the Foundation. 

As a result of the merger, the Foundation has established a Business Advisory Board, created to provide a mechanism for business leaders to advise the board of directors and leadership of the Foundation and its various Project Management Committees (PMCs), to ensure that the Foundation serves its entire community of academic, industry and healthcare constituents. 

Lastly, following the tradition of the tranSMART Foundation, the i2b2 Foundation will continue to run its successful 3C Committees: Content, Community and Collaboration, through which members and partners collaborate on projects that move the community forward.

About The i2b2 tranSMART Foundation

The i2b2 tranSMART Foundation is a global non-profit open-source organization focused on realizing the promise of precision medicine. It provides open-source software and databases representing more than 250 million patient lives to thousands of physicians and scientists worldwide. Its data-sharing and analytics platforms help academic, non-profit, healthcare, and commercial research communities effectively conduct collaborative research. The Foundation is headquartered in Wakefield, Massachusetts with Centers of Excellence in Ann Arbor, Mich.; London, England; Boston, Mass.; Belval, Luxembourg; and Amsterdam, Netherlands. The tranSMART Foundation can also be found on the web at www.i2b2tranSMART.org.