When the first all-civilian mission launches into Earth’s orbit next week, an innovative data repository and analytics platform developed by NYC-based TrialX will also launch. The innovative technology will house a first-of-its-kind database designed to collect research, flight and relevant clinical data from Inspiration4 and future commercial spaceflight missions.
The Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) selected TrialX to build this data repository after a competitive bid process.
“TrialX stood out because of their ability to quickly and easily integrate with many different data sources,” said TRISH Director Dorit Donoviel, Ph.D. “We will be collecting health data from spaceflight passengers as well as select environmental data from the flight capsule. Having a platform that can pull data from different devices and make it easily available to researchers while protecting privacy and data ownership is crucial to TRISH’s objectives.”
“We are delighted to have been selected by TRISH,” says Sharib Khan, CEO and Co-founder of TrialX. “Funny story, I participated in the lottery to win a seat on Inspiration4. Well, I didn’t win a trip to space, but we won the award to build this database.”
The database was built as part of TRISH’s EXPAND (Enhancing eXploration and Analog Definition) program. EXPAND is a multi-year initiative the institute has developed to help the NASA Human Research Program to reduce the risk to human health in space. The database will go live when the four-passenger capsule takes off on September 15 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Upon the mission’s return, the data will be made available to the research community and space flight operators to study the impact of space travel on human health and performance.
TrialX had already developed a platform that can ingest a variety of data types, including electronic health record summaries, wearable sensor data, diagnostic images, biospecimen analysis results and qualitative survey data. Leveraging its extensive experience in building clinical trial solutions, TrialX was able to quickly customize the existing platform to meet the unique needs of the EXPAND program, while maintaining TRISH’s privacy and data ownership rules.
“The EXPAND database that TrialX built has the flexibility to seamlessly take in multiple types of data from different flight providers to create a repository that can integrate information,” said James Hury, TRISH’s Deputy Director and Chief Innovation Officer. “A centralized, standardized and open research database will increase access to knowledge about human health for the global research community.”
With several future spaceflights planned, TrialX will work with TRISH and its partners to add capability to store genomic and biospecimen data, in addition to making it easier for spaceflight participants to collect in-flight data through mobile apps.
“Since we launched TrialX in 2008, as an app to match patients to clinical trials, we have been developing technologies to enable human participation in clinical research,” said Khan. “In 2016, we launched the first do-it-yourself platform to enable patients to remotely self-report data using mobile apps and wearables. Now with the EXPAND data repository, we are truly going beyond to build technologies that can support the research needed to understand long-term effects of space travel.”
About TrialX
TrialX is a clinical research and space health technology company headquartered in New York City. Founded by two graduates of Columbia University’s Department of Biomedical Informatics, it’s mission is to accelerate clinical and translational research on earth and beyond. TrialX products include an award-winning clinical trial finder (Dory), a patient recruitment management system (iConnect), an ePRO/eConsent platform (Appbakery) and an online talk show (CureTalks), all designed to facilitate collection, analysis and dissemination of clinical research data across web, mobile or stand-alone devices. In partnership with the WIRB-Copernicus Group, TrialX products are used by WCG CenterWatch, Pfizer, Sanofi and other clinical trial sponsors, leading academic medical centers such as the University of Pennsylvania, New York Langone School of Medicine, Indiana University CTSI, NorthWestern University, and patient advocacy groups such as the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the Alzheimer’s Association and the Global Lyme Alliance. Learn more at TrialX.com
About the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH)
Led by Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Space Medicine, TRISH is a consortium that includes partners Caltech and MIT. NASA recently awarded the institute a six-year extension to further its work delivering disruptive solutions that mitigate biomedical risks for human space exploration while advancing terrestrial health technologies. Learn more about TRISH at bcm.edu/spacehealth and follow them on Facebook (@BCMTRISH), Twitter (@BCMSpaceHealth) and Instagram (@bcm_spacehealth).
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