Monash Biomedical Institute (MBI) Neuroimaging

Built on the digital asset-management platform Mediaflux, DaRIS is a system that manages raw, mainly neuroimaging, data. It has been in use at the Neuroimaging Computational and Data Management Facility at the Howard Florey Institute, University of Melbourne, for the last three years and routinely receives MR images from researchers, organising them into a subject-centric data model. The platform hosts over 70 mouse and human projects.

This platform is now being deployed at the Monash Biomedical Imaging facility (MBI). The MBI is a newly established biomedical imaging research centre that supports a wide range of biomedical, engineering and scientific research projects. The MBI facility supports interdisciplinary and multi-modal imaging research in X-Ray, CT, PET, SPECT and MRI.

The project will focus primarily on the different domain areas of the MBI, creating enhancements in DARIS to fully support researchers, their experimental methods and workflows. It is one of a number of activities involving DaRIS; others include the ARC Linkage grant project (Prof Gary Egan, PI), An Integrative and Distributed Data Management and Workflow Framework for e-Research in Biomedical Imaging (2011). 

 

Aims and objectives

  • Allow researchers to create simple (linear) experimental methods, and hence collect and manage data without assistance from senior informatics staff.
  • Allow researchers to customise experimental method step types, by defining the information that will be collected at each stage.
  • Improve all usability aspects of experimental method, such as method management, step reuse and access controls.

Outcomes

  • Greater uptake of DaRIS by biomedical imaging researchers.
  • Greater ownership of DaRIS by researchers, due to ability to precisely describe experimental methods.
  • Improved research outcomes, due to more precise record-keeping of experimental method.

Collaboration

  • VeRSI is collaborating with the University of Queensland's Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, which has also begun deploying MyTardis for microscopy users.
  • Since the pilot began, the Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy has also begun a trial deployment of MicroTardis. This will be carried out by the Monash e-Research Centre with some assistance from VeRSI.

 

Project details

 

   

ID number MU-P-016

Project title  Using DARIS to support Experimental Methods in Biomedical Imaging

Start date  August 2011 End date  June 2012

Lead institute  Monash University

Principal investigator  Gary Egan (Monash Biomedical Imaging, Monash University)

Partner PIs and/or participating institutions  Dr David Barnes (Monash Biomedical Imaging, Monash University); Dr Neil Killeen (Howard Florey Institute); Prof Paul Bonnington (Monash eResearch Centre); Dr Marcus Gray; Dr Juan Dominguez; Jason Lohrey (Arcitecta)

Partner sponsor  Prof Paul Bonnington, Monash eResearch Centre

Partner project management  Dr David Barnes, Monash Biomedical Imaging

VeRSI executive sponsor  Dr Ann Borda, VeRSI Executive Director

VeRSI project management  Steve Bennett

Brief summary of project  Enhancement of DaRIS platform to allow creation and maintenance of ‘experimental method‘ types by researchers at Monash Biomedical Imaging and Howard Florey Institute; development of additional UI components for searching; and analysis of potential interoperability with XNAT system.

Keywords: MBI | NeuroImaging | Nero | Imaging | VeRSI | Mediaflux | Neuroinformatics | Reflective Interface | Digital Asset Manager | Metadata | Collaboration | Image | Storage | Accessibility | Research | DaRIS | Monash | Biomedical

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