Red Hat, University of North Carolina Partner on Medical Research

Published: April 24, 2007

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

If there is any industry that could use a little of the collaborative energy and openness of the open source software movement, it is the healthcare industry. And that is the main reason why commercial Linux and middleware distributor Red Hat and the University of North Carolina, one of the major university's in Red Hat's home state, last week inked a partnership to do just that.

For now, the collaboration between the Linux juggernaut and the university is focusing on clinical research, and they are bringing their respective resources to bear on UNC's North Carolina Research Campus in the city of Kannapolis. Not only will medical researchers be shown how to make use of open source software, they will be encouraged to be more collaborative in their approach to research by the very nature of the open source movement.

"Our goal is to make collaboration and open source come to life in the field of clinical research," explained Joanne Rohde, executive vice president of operations at Red Hat. "With our partners, we will identify specific projects where the sharing of information will lead to better, more accurate research. In turn this research will enable real-life solutions to be developed across both the public and private sector at the North Carolina Research Campus. The history of open source has taught us that the more broadly and transparently information is shared and re-used, the faster and stronger the results."

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