Launching a New Trends from the Trenches Podcast
By Allison Proffitt
February 22, 2022 | Bio-IT World and BioTeam have been exploring the drivers of life sciences innovation for years during the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo and in regular columns in the publication. Now, together, we’ve launched a new podcast to capture in-depth conversations with leaders in the field about data, culture, technology, and more.
Hosted by BioTeam Co-founder Stan Gloss, the Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers an insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. We aim to explore what is data, discovery, and what’s coming next.
Our first episodes include a short conversation about the podcast’s genesis as well as two in-depth explorations of data commons, the cloud, and digital transformation. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast in your favorite player and join us monthly for candid conversations about what is working and what is changing in the life sciences.
Bio-IT World editor, Allison Proffitt, and BioTeam co-founder, Stan Gloss, discuss their latest project: a podcast to capture in-depth conversations with leaders in the field about data, culture, technology, and more.
At the National Cancer Institute, Tony Kerlavage knows quite a bit about managing very large pools of data. When NCI launched the Genomic Data Commons, it aimed to democratize access to the genomic data in The Cancer Genome Atlas and other sources. Since then, though, Kerlavage points out that our data types and volumes have only grown. Now NCI is taking a “Commons of Commons” approach to link pools of well-structured data. “The more data we can bring together in a well-structured way, the more value it has in the long run,” he believes. He advocates for sharable Python notebooks and reusable R programming, believing significant investments in data hygiene and interoperability delivers more value than simply mining data lakes with artificial intelligence tools—for now, at least. The challenge for researchers, Kerlavage says, is to view their work with an eye to the future: How might someone else use this data going forward?
Links from this episode:
NCI Launches Genomic Data Commons
Bob Grossman’s Vision of the Commons of Commons
BioTeam’s Approach to Collaborative Dictionary Authoring
From big pharma to Amazon Web Services, Lita Sands has seen the amazing impact that the Cloud has had on life sciences research over the course of her career. During the pandemic, Sands has seen companies’ journeys to the cloud accelerate from 8-12 year roadmaps into 1-2 year transition plans. As companies turn their attention to enabling digital transformation, Sands has some advice. Take a 1-3 year view of your goals, she says, and don’t try to boil the ocean. “People need to see success.” She advocates for strong partners who have already built and validated the tools you need and warns against setting a finish line. “You’ll never be done,” she says.
Links from this episode:
Bio-IT World’s 2021 Plenary Panel on Digital Transformation moderated by Lita Sands
Trends from the Trenches column with Mike Montello, GSK
