A Template for Translational Bioinformatics: Facilitating Multimodal Data Analyses in Preclinical Models of Neurological Injury

Background Pediatric neurological injury and disease is a critical public health issue due to increasing rates of survival from primary injuries (e.g., cardiac arrest, traumatic brain injury) and a lack of monitoring technologies and therapeutics for the treatment of secondary neurological injury. Translational, preclinical research facilitates the development of solutions to address this growing issue but is hindered by a lack of available data frameworks and standards for the management, processing, and analysis of multimodal data sets. Methods Here, we present a generalizable data framework that was implemented for large animal research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to address this technological gap. The presented framework culminates in an interactive dashboard for exploratory analysis and filtered data set download. Results Compared with existing clinical and preclinical data management solutions, the presented framework accommodates heterogeneous data types (single measure, repeated measures, time series, and imaging), integrates data sets across various experimental models, and facilitates dynamic visualization of integrated data sets. We present a use case of this framework for predictive model development for intra-arrest prediction of cardiopulmonary resuscitation outcome. Conclusions The described preclinical data framework may serve as a template to aid in data management efforts in other translational research labs that generate heterogeneous data sets and require a dynamic platform that can easily evolve alongside their research.