Platform Centers & Hubs

What are Platform Centers & Hubs?

Platform Centers & Hubs are a special type of project PHRT funds which aim to establish (digital) infrastructures and services that can be used by other researchers.

Swiss Multi-Omics Center (SMOC)

Within the PHRT program, SMOC is an engine for multi-omics data generation, analysis and interpretation. It constitutes of three entities: The Genomics platform, the Proteomics platform and the Metabolomics platform. For secure data processing and sharing, SMOC is integrated into the SPHN/BioMEdIT secure computational infrastructure.

Impact for patients and medicine

Clinical Stream: Provides high quality molecular data on the DNA, RNA, Protein, Metabolite and Lipid level for gaining clinical insights.
Multi-omics analysis will progressively impose itself as an essential tool for better understanding pathogenic mechanisms of diseases, and to establish diagnoses.

Impact for research and development

Exploratory Research Stream: Enables integration, visualization and analysis of omics data mapped onto biological networks and pathways.
SPHN BioMedIT infrastructure integration: For data lineage tracking, secure data management, data sharing, secondary and tertiary analysis.
SMOC unites technology with technical expertise, interdisciplinarity, and extensive experience in interpreting omics data. Its services go beyond data generation and towards enabling excellence in research.

Dr. Sandra Götze

SMOC Coordinator & Head of Proteomics

Prof. Dr. Jacques Fellay

Head of Genomics

Prof. Dr. Nicolas Zamboni

SMOC

Precision Imaging Hub

The Personalized Medicine Imaging Hub is currently being launched. This hub is a cross-institution entity including research groups from Empa, EPFL, ETHZ and PSI. It aims at bringing together ETH biomedical imaging researchers with clinical partners to support new research to improve the use of imaging technologies/processing in precision medicine. The subjects covered by the hub range from image acquisition technology, multimodal data integration and analysis to clinical imaging software.

Impact for patients and medicine

Direct and fruitful collaboration between clinical centers and ETH Domain researchers leading to new synergies.
Development of new technologies and improvement of diagnostic capacities enables better and faster image analysis.
Improvements in image analysis leads to better and faster diagnosis.

Impact for research and development

Harmonization of research protocols and processes across ETH Domain institutions.
Cross-fertilization and improvement of medical imaging technologies.
Integration of imaging analysis into a broad multi-modal precision medicine approach, opening up new options for researchers.

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Kozerke

ETH Zurich

Prof. Dr. Michael Unser

EPFL

Prof. Dr. Marco Stampanoni

PSI

Prof. Dr. Antonia Neels

Empa

Personalized Health Data Analysis Hub

The Personalized Health Data Analysis Hub is a joint-venture between the two SFAs PHRT and SDSC, currently being launched, to support data science in the field of omics data analyses. It supports in particular the integration and analysis of data produced by SMOC and will enhance the understanding of multimodal data analysis.

Impact for patients and medicine

Refinement and processing of the clinical -omics analysis yields valuable additional results.
Integration of clinical data with –omics data provides further conclusions.
Improvement in comprehensibility of –omics data ensures results are ready for use in clinics.

Impact for research and development

Processing increases the yield of data from –omics analyses.
Better integration of data into a multi-omics precision medicine approach unveils new connections and relations.
More eyes on the data allow more potential for analyses and conclusions.