IBM to open biomedical research centre

Dublin site IBM is to create a Centre of Competency in Biomedical Search as part of its €46 million, 300-job investment in its Irish operations announced last week.

The centre will be part of IBM's existing Dublin Software Laboratory located on its Mulhuddart campus.

"The Dublin Software Lab is one of the key labs in the IBM corporation," said IBM senior vice- president of integrated operations Bob Moffat, making the announcement last week. Developers would work on advanced analytics software in biomedical research, he said.

The software will help doctors and patients make more informed medical decisions based on results returned from information databases, according to Elaine Stephens, director, IBM Dublin Software Lab.

The centre is an expansion of research done by the lab's text analytics group, which focuses on methods of improving the results of web-based or text-based searches for information.

"If you are a physician, you are trying to make sense of a lot of information," Ms Stephens said. "This work will look at how to add more information, and make a more effective search and query."

The new effort complements IBM's development of a clinical trials portal in Ireland that enables doctors and patients to access clinical trial information in one place.

Overall, the investment announced last Thursday will expand the company's existing Dublin Software Laboratory operations by recruiting graduate and doctorate level engineers and programmers; produce a new IBM Business Incubation Centre; and add new jobs in its supply chain operations.

In addition to the Centre of Competency in Biomedical Search, other software development announcements include Centres of Competency for Service Oriented Architectures (SOA), a more efficient way of organising information and allowing computer systems to talk to each other, and for IBM software that integrates with software from German multinational SAP.

A new Business Incubation Centre will be a collaborative effort between IBM and Irish industry partners, developers, small and medium sized businesses, universities and Government organisations.

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin said: "This continuing investment by IBM is extremely important to Ireland and will send out all the right signals."