Center for Integrative Biomedical Computing Legacy Transition

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Summary The Center for Integrative Biomedical Computing (CIBC) has an established, twenty year record as a Biomedical Technology Research Resource (BTRR) whose focus has been technical research and development in the area of image based modeling and simulation. The resulting legacy of scientific publications, novel algorithms and computational approaches and especially a suite of software tools and data sets can continue to support a vibrant research community even as the twilight requirements of the BTRR program dictate a time limit on NIH P41 funding. However, while already in heavy use, many of the existing, open source, software tools require additional hardening, documentation, and user-interface support to reach their full potential. More important, the software engineering and infrastructure, even though they represent the highest standards available from an academic center, are not yet robust and flexible enough to sustain easy maintenance and extension by a community outside the CIBC, a key element to ensuring the continued health and growth of the impact of these tools beyond the lifetime of the BTRR. Finally, there are existing collaborators and Driving Biomedical Project (DBP) partners whose research would suffer with the pending cessation of operations of the BTRR. We propose a transition plan to achieve long term sustainability of the software and data resources that the CIBC has produced. The goal of this plan is to complete the conversion of all the technical products achieved over the lifetime of the Center into well crafted, validated computer code with all the necessary support for both users and future maintainers of the code base. We seek to convert our open-source software into something far more valuable: community supported and sustained software. The conversion will require the assistance of a professional software house that is familiar with the necessary steps and with the technical domain of our center, Kitware Inc. Kitware is a company with a long history of assisting biomedical researchers to develop highly complex software packages and libraries, including VTK, ITK, 3D Slicer, and ParaView. Members of the CIBC have collaborated with Kitware in the past so there is a proven relationship on which to pursue the proposed transition plan. This combination of the domain specific knowledge of the specific tools within the twenty years of the CIBC, along with the ability of Kitware to support and deploy software and data, will ensure a successful transition and a lasting legacy from this BTRR.