Hitachi Data Systems awards Intersect Australia

Hitachi Data Systems has presented eResearch support agency Intersect Australia with the APAC Health and Life Sciences Innovation Award, recognising the company’s achievements in fostering collaboration, innovation and efficiencies in the medical research sector.

Intersect last year teamed with Hitachi Data Systems to create a fully integrated infrastructure solution to enable research outcomes. Through the partnership, Intersect has been able to facilitate research collaboration in areas as vital and diverse as medical research, astrophysics, environmental modelling and monitoring, cultural heritage protection and many others.

Research data hosted on the Intersect facility is accessible through a secure multitenant content cloud that enables file sharing, databases and applications via a virtual portal on a Hitachi storage system. The facility is tightly integrated with Intersect’s large-scale computing platforms, allowing Intersect to provide a unified service that supports its members’ diverse research activities. It is also connected via a dedicated, high-speed network through AARNet to Australia’s research infrastructure, making possible effective and efficient national and international collaboration.

“The Intersect facility allows leading research institutions such as the Westmead Millennium Institute, which houses the Australian Breast Cancer Tissue Bank, to solve big data problems that involve geographically dispersed clinicians and research teams,” explained Intersect CEO Dr Ian Gibson. “The reliability, robustness and scale-out capabilities of the Hitachi Data Systems infrastructure let us provide an ideal platform of high-value services to research groups. This makes it possible for our researchers to securely store and share their data with collaborating partners, and to meet their various legislative and compliance requirements.”

The Australian Breast Cancer Tissue Bank (ABCTB) is Australia’s only large-scale collection of specimens and data dedicated to sporadic breast cancer, supported by a collaborative network of cancer clinicians and researchers. The data collections comprise scans of tissue samples, associated clinical information and high-resolution images of tumour sections. The associated data can total up to 50 TB.

Neil Evans, vice president and country manager, Hitachi Data Systems Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands, said: “The Hitachi Data Systems Health and Life Sciences Innovation Award recognises the unique contributions of innovators in the medical community and the patients they serve. By supporting important medical research projects such as Australian Breast Cancer Tissue Bank, Intersect allows researchers from around the country to collaborate on significant national data sets, lower the cost of information management and storage, and ultimately transform lives.”