3 July 2023

NCCR AntiResist: From bed to benchsite

For the battle against antibiotic-resistant germs, a multidisciplinary network has emerged that closely links clinical and basic research.

In the first phase of the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) AntiResist, a project planned for a period of 12 years and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, clinical material and data from hospitalised patients with certain bacterial infections (see box) are being collected and made available for research. They present an important part of the foundation on which the search for new ways of fighting infections will be built.

Clinical data require special handling

Data collected in hospitals, whether contact data, treatment data, data on samples taken or isolated bacterial strains, are considered by law to require special protection because they are always linked to a person. Handling of clinical data, also referred to as sensitive data, require special technical and contractual measures. To establish these measures and ensure that they are fully complied with, a Medical Data Office run by experts from the Department of Clinical Research from the areas of regulatory affairs, data management, data science and IT has been formed.

Before sensitive data can leave the hospitals, a number of safeguards must be in place. For example, the necessary authorisations for data use for research purposes must be in place. Data collection and sampling must be carried out in a harmonised and standardised manner in all hospitals and quality controls must be in place. Data transfer must be secured by appropriate technical systems and contracts. Finally, all materials and patient data must be de-identified (encoded) before they can be made available to researchers. All of this is the responsibility of the Medical Data Office.

Broad data base

By combining clinical information from patients with information from basic research, a unique foundation is created for research enabling the development of new in vitro models and antimicrobial agents. The Medical Data Office is in close exchange with the Research Data Officer located at the Biozentrum, who is responsible for managing data from basic research such as cell imaging and data from genomics, proteomics or metobolomics research. Secure linkage of clinical and laboratory data is the joint responsibility of the Medical and Research Data Offices. The appropriate technical environment for this endeavour is provided by sciCOREmed at the University of Basel.