KinCor has been developed to register and monitor children with congenital, acquired, and hereditary abnormalities of the heart and vascular system. The system provides researchers with a valuable resource for future clinical studies.

In the world of ‘personalized medicine’ treatment is based on the specific genetic profile of the patient. For the interpretation of such complex patient profiles intensive data analysis is needed – analysis that presents demands beyond the IT solutions available on the market today. In addition, many healthcare or biotech companies have no knowledge, time or money available to develop their own IT infrastructure and are therefore looking for external solutions.

Right drug, wrong patient?

A recent article in MIT Technology Review states that two out of ten approved cancer drugs launched in 2011 are accompanied by a diagnostic test determining for which patient the drug will have an effect. The number of these “companion diagnostics” will grow in the near future as research shows, for example, that the average cancer drug only works for 25% of the patients, resulting in increasing pressure from regulators and payers for such tests. To underline this, PwC expects 11% p.a. growth in the molecular diagnostics market – from $3 billion in 2009 to over $5 billion in 2014 .

New tests require new infrastructure

The technology used in many new tests depends on complex data analysis that is better-suited to newer network-enabled models that centralize the majority of processing rather than relying on a powerful computer attached to each diagnostic device. However this raises the question of how to ensure that any solution is validated to ensure patient safety – particularly when applying such a novel architecture in the inherently conservative clinical space.

Crosslinks – a bioinformatics company based in Rotterdam – offers a solution to this problem by offering a pre-developed platform that these diagnostics can be based upon. As a provider of software solutions aimed at improving the diagnosis for patients, our portfolio includes the delivery of diagnostic applications in oncology and microbiology that use this networked architecture. We know from experience that a validated analysis and centralized IT platform will be a key success factor in the development of new diagnostic product, and that developing such a platform is a demanding and time-consuming task. Our IT platform can reduce the development risks of our customers, thereby increasing quality and offering a shorter time to market.

Ronald Nanninga, CEO and founder Crosslinks

The published article can be found here (Dutch).

And here the full electronic version of the FD innovation section (see page 9).

If you were not able to get an invitation or are not able to visit the Theater on April 2nd, you could also attend to one of the simulcast locations which TEDxMaastricht is also offering.

Crosslinks was proud to be one of the TEDxMaastricht invited attendees, we hope to return in 2011.

As part of pediatric efforts we are proud to host and maintain the Eurokids IBD research database.

1. “Inflammatory stimuli reduce survival of serotonergic neurons and induce neuronal expression of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase in rat dorsal raphe nucleus organotypic brain slices” by Hochstrasser T, Ullrich C, Sperner-Unterweger B and Humpel C.

This article has just been accepted for publication in “Neuroscience” and it’s pre-release abstract is available for viewing on PubMed (April 12, 2011).

2. “Antidepressants increase human hippocampal neurogenesis by activating the glucocorticoid receptor” by Anacker C, Zunszain PA, Cattaneo A, Carvalho LA, Garabedian MJ, Thuret S, Price J and Pariante CM.

This article was selected by the European commission (April 13, 2011) to be posted as a special news item on the EU Cordis site. The web-post makes mention of the MoodInflame project including its individual consortium countries and is a great advertisement for our collective work.

3. The EU has also released a general article on the MoodInflame project titled: “Does brain inflammation disrupt mood regulation?”

As of 2011, Dutch law requires every child who is admitted to hospital to be screened for malnutrition and so this project, funded by the well-known company Nutricia (of the Danone Group), aims to assist the Government’s initiative in combating child malnutrition in The Netherlands.

The paper describes the simulation of athletic performance with a computational model of energy turnover and heat transport in the whole human body. To verify the whole body modeling approach, a mountain time trial in the Tour de France from Bourg d’Oisans to Alpe d’Huez was simulated using published physiological data of Lance Armstrong, sevenfold Tour de France champion.

Paper is still under embargo until October 3rd 2011.

Within the MOODINFLAME project, Crosslinks is responsible for regulating the security and reliability of all electronic clinical data. The software platform we are developing for this task includes a database and data management tools. In addition, there will be an upload and statistical validation portal added during this year.

Please find the full article here.

Crosslinks’ presence at this conference is to provide demonstrations of our V-Scope desktop system to the visiting gynecologists, obstetricians and sonographers. We aim to show how the 3D medical image rendering and visualization capabilities of V-Scope can improve diagnostics within this particular field of medicine.

Our presentation titled “The Use of Spotfire in the Research and Development of a Bacterial Population Diagnostic Device” will be given on Thursday the 17th of March.

Thomas successfully defended his PhD thesis titled “Fluxes of Life – Bioinformatics for Metabolic Flux Quantification in Isotopic Non-Steady-State” on Friday the 11th of March at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. That same day Alex received his MBA from the Rotterdam School of Management.

Thomas joined Crosslinks late last year as a senior bionformatician and business developer and Alex, our COO, joined the team 2 years ago. We are very proud to have them onboard!

This application is the first practical guide for making a correct diagnosis of suspected neonatal stroke. The App is developed for Paul Govaert, MD, PhD at Sophia Children’s Hospital in Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam, the Netherlands and at ZNA Koningin Paola Kinderziekenhuis in Antwerp, Belgium.

For more information about iNeo Stroke, click here.

Or to download it now directly from the iTunes store, click here.

The original Crosslinks web design was around for nearly two years. Clearly it was time to retire the old design and get up with something new and fresh. It took some time to construct an entirely new design but we managed within a reasonable time and here it is! We hope you like it.