Project Successfully Completed: DigiONE I3 – A Digital Infrastructure for Europe-Wide Research Using Oncology Health Data Has Been Established

1. Building a Digital Oncology Network for Europe (DigiONE)

After a 2.5-year project duration (Nov. 1, 2023 – Apr. 30, 2026), the establishment of a digital infrastructure made health data from people diagnosed with cancer available for European research.

Medical data is extremely valuable for research, but can only be utilized with significant effort. Regulatory requirements and technical constraints often limit the cross-site use of health data. The goal of this project was therefore to establish a research network that makes the clinical data from participating sites accessible through digital infrastructures.

Partners from the following EU countries were involved in the project: Norway, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic.

2. What have we achieved?

Important milestones have been reached to enable the use of medical data for research across Europe in the future:

• Oncological clinical data from the Dresden site were converted into a standardized, interoperable format (MEDOC) in collaboration between the clinic and the Center for Medical Informatics.
• A digital infrastructure for data storage (OMOP Common Data Model research data repository) was established at the Dresden Data Integration Center
• Data queries can be performed via a digital connection between the participating European partners (using Vantage6). The data remains stored locally, and the analyses are performed locally. The results of the analyses are exported in an anonymized form.

3. Project Participants at the Dresden Site

The project’s success is based on close collaboration among the following departments:

• Department of Internal Medicine I: Prof. Dr. med. Martin Bornhäuser, Prof. Dr. med. Martin Wermke, Dr. Martin Koch
• Dresden Data Integration Center: Mirko Gruhl, Christian Gierschner, Maik Löwe
• Center for Medical Informatics: Prof. Dr. Martin Sedlmayr, Yuan Peng, Dr. Eveline Prochaska, Dr. Elisa Henke, Anne-Kathrin Andreeff

Successful completion with concrete benefits

A special highlight: Institutions in eleven European countries successfully participated in a first joint study (Digi One 04 Pan-Cancer) in April 2026. Our site successfully participated using the infrastructure established as part of the DigiOne I3 project.

This demonstrates that the structures developed in the project work in practice and actively contribute to cancer research.

Outlook

The results will endure even after the project ends:

The established infrastructure can continue to be used and expanded. This makes an important contribution to improving cancer research in the long term and gaining new insights more quickly.