Why We Built the Community Accelerated Research Exchange

An Interview with Audra Moran, President and CEO of OCRA

Q: Why did you decide to build the Community Accelerated Research Exchange?
Several years ago, I asked our scientific community what was needed to cure ovarian cancer. I think I expected some overlapping answers, and instead I got lots of different answers - each thoughtful, but all pointing in different directions. In that moment, it became clear we weren’t necessarily just facing a scientific challenge, but rather a collaboration and coordination problem. This field has brilliant researchers, but too often scientists work in parallel instead of together. I kept thinking: there must be a better way.

Q: Where did that realization lead you?
I started looking at how other fields approach similar challenges and came across new ways of thinking about data, especially the idea that it doesn’t need to live in one place, but it does need to be connected. That shifted my perspective. It’s not just about generating more data, it’s about making existing data findable, usable, and shareable. If we can lower barriers and connect data and scientists, we can ask better questions and move faster. By connecting data rather than centralizing it, we can respect the governance and local control of the individual participating institutions, which is really what makes this whole initiative work. Transparency, provenance, stewardship, and clear governance models are what help researchers trust both the data and the systems through which it is shared.

Q: How did that lead to the Research Exchange?
At the same time, we began building a patient registry, the Living Lab. For a while, the registry and this idea of research data sharing and collaboration felt like separate efforts. But I kept asking: why? Why not design something where patient experience and research data inform each other from the start? That’s when the Research Exchange took shape - not as a single tool, but a connected system.
And it wasn’t just about technology; it was about philosophy. A shared belief that how we share data, methods, and processes matters as much as the data itself. If we want better outcomes, we need to design systems for collaboration from the start.

Q: Does this represent an evolution in OCRA’s role in the field?
Yes, it is an evolution and an expansion. Funding good science is still core, but we can also support researchers by illuminating opportunities and possible directions through the Research Exchange while fostering potential collaborations and enabling micropublications along the way. We want to enable better science by giving researchers the tools, data, sharing capabilities, and connections they need, as well as a mechanism to communicate results easily and quickly. And platforms like Cirro, which powers the Research Exchange, cost millions of dollars to build; their philosophy is this infrastructure should be a shared expense beyond individual institutions, which is why they chose to spin out of the cancer center where they were founded. We saw an immediate benefit to working with them and realized that, as a trusted organization in the gynecologic oncology field, we are in a unique position to serve as a convenor for this initiative, and in fact have come to see that as our responsibility.

Q: What are the elements of the Research Exchange, and what does it enable?
The Research Exchange is where patients, researchers, and partners connect to share knowledge and accelerate progress. It includes the Living Lab, a comprehensive registry for ovarian and uterine cancer patients to contribute clinical data as well as patient reported outcomes, and the Discovery Lab, a trusted research environment where researchers can access, share, and analyze data (including Living Lab data). And at its core, it’s a community engagement platform that offers a forum to share, connect, and collaborate by making it easier to learn, share data, build on work, and uncover patterns. Patients become ongoing contributors, and researchers become part of a connected ecosystem. This will help drive discoveries that researchers wouldn’t be able to make when working in isolation.

Q: What do you hope people feel?
That they’re part of something meaningful that will have real impact. Even small contributions, like sharing an experience or exploring data, matter when they’re part of a larger system. It’s about connection and possibility.

Q: What does success look like?
In the near term, it’s engagement: patients joining, researchers participating, data flowing. Longer term, it’s improving the pace and quality of research by promoting collaboration and data-sharing. If we can shorten the distance between question and answer and surface the results, that’s real progress. And ultimately, we want to surface areas of promising research that the community can coalesce around.

Q: What would you say to someone considering getting involved?
You don’t have to be an expert to use the Research Exchange. Patients, researchers, and people from other disciplines all have something to contribute and to gain. Some of the biggest breakthroughs happen at those intersections. This is a shared effort, and the more people who participate, the more powerful it becomes.