Vivli is pleased to announce the 2026 cohort of Global Ambassadors, a group of researchers using shared clinical research data to answer important scientific questions and champion the value of data reuse within their research communities. The Global Ambassador Program supports researchers in extending the reach and impact of work emerging from secondary analyses. Ambassadors share their findings and perspectives through conferences, publications, professional networks, and other forums, contributing to broader conversations about responsible data sharing and reuse. “We are excited to welcome this new group of Ambassadors and support them in sharing both their research and their experiences working with shared data,” said Rebecca Li, Vivli CEO. “Researchers who put existing data to new use are some of the strongest advocates for data sharing because they can show firsthand the new questions, findings, and collaborations that access can make possible.”
The 2026 cohort builds on the work of Vivli’s inaugural Ambassadors, who used data accessed through Vivli to advance research across cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and clinical research methodology. Over the course of the year, the 2025 Ambassadors published new findings, presented their work to research communities around the world, pursued new analyses, and helped broaden the conversation around responsible data sharing and reuse. We congratulate this year’s Ambassadors on their selection and look forward to following their work over the coming year.
Decisions made during study design have a lasting impact and shape the evidence the research yields.
Patterns may arise across multiple studies that are difficult to discern in individual results. Aggregating participant-level data across multiple studies enables researchers to understand how analytical methods selection, trial conduct, and design characteristics can impact research outcomes. These learnings can uncover new insights and improve future research, extending the value of existing data and patient contributions.
Vivli provides the secure access that makes this kind of inquiry possible. Researchers can draw on anonymized participant-level data from completed studies to investigate questions beyond the aims of the original work, extending the value of the data and participants’ contributions.
When those data span thousands of participants, researchers can pursue queries like:
Why do participants leave a study early?Can control data collected earlier be used again without weakening the analysis?Which statistical methods give the clearest picture of treatment effects?
The studies below show how Vivli supports efforts to answer these questions.
When participants leave a study early, the resulting gaps can weaken the evidence and complicate its interpretation. Ryan McChrystal, David McAllister, and colleagues at the University of Glasgow analyzed participant-level data from 90 randomized studies involving 86,107 people across 10 conditions. By tracing when participants left and the reasons reported for their departure, the team found that attrition was generally highest near the beginning of follow-up and was most often associated with adverse events or voluntary withdrawal. The scale of the analysis made it possible to show that attrition changes over time and differs by cause, giving teams a more precise basis for anticipating where losses are most likely to occur. Those patterns can inform enrollment targets, the timing of retention efforts, and how incomplete follow-up is handled in the final analysis.
Dropout risk over time by reported cause, from 90 randomized studies. Each line is one trial; colors show the best-fitting statistical model. Adapted from McChrystal et al., J Clin Epidemiol 2025 (CC BY 4.0).
Control groups raise a different methodological question. In studies that add treatments over time, control participants enrolled earlier may differ from those enrolled alongside a later treatment group. Using the earlier data could reduce the number of new control participants needed, but changes in who enrolls or how care is delivered can skew the comparison. Junichi Asano, Akihiro Hirakawa, and colleagues at the Institute of Science Tokyo, developed a Bayesian method that determines how much influence the earlier control data should have. They tested it through simulations and applied it to COVID-19 data accessed through Vivli. When results from the earlier and concurrent control groups were similar, the method gave the earlier data more weight. When they differed, it gave them less. The approach can make better use of existing controls while limiting the chance that changes over time are mistaken for a treatment effect.
The same need for careful judgment extends to the analysis of patient-reported outcomes. Jiajun Yan, Feng Xie, and colleagues at McMaster University examined whether the statistical method used to analyze EQ-5D, a widely used measure of health and quality of life, could change the estimated effect of a treatment. Previous guidance had rested largely on simulation studies and expert recommendations. Using participant-level data from 13 completed studies, the team applied four common models to each dataset separately and compared the results. The models generally reached the same conclusion about whether a treatment made a meaningful difference. This suggests that, in many cases, the overall interpretation did not depend heavily on the method chosen. However, the comparison also showed where the methods began to diverge when many responses were missing or clustered at the top of the scale. In those cases, the choice of analysis could shape the result. These findings give researchers a firmer basis for analyzing quality-of-life outcomes in future work.
Estimated treatment effects on quality of life across 13 studies, analyzed four ways. The methods mostly agree, with the largest gaps appearing where responses clustered at the top of the scale. From Yan et al., Value in Health 2026 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Shared data makes it possible to examine the decisions that shape clinical research with the same rigor used to study treatments and outcomes. By revisiting data from completed studies, investigators can trace how decisions made during design and analysis influence the findings. Vivli gives this data a continuing life, allowing knowledge to build from one study to the next.
Recent methodology and prediction publications and public disclosures using Vivli-hosted data
The challenge is built around a fully harmonized control-arm dataset drawn from 11 Alzheimer’s trials across five pharmaceutical sponsors: AstraZeneca, Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, and Takeda. It brings together 7,089 placebo-arm participants and more than 20 years of data — never before analyzed at this scale.
Three research tracks address questions newly answerable at this scale: sex differences in Alzheimer’s disease, rates of progression, and subtyping and heterogeneity. Up to 24 teams will participate, with $25,000 awarded to the first-place team in each track. Winning teams will also have the opportunity to publish findings in a high-impact journal and present at a major Alzheimer’s conference.
All analysis takes place within Vivli’s secure, cloud-based research environment. Teams must include a PI sponsor and a statistician at minimum.
The first letter of intent deadline is September 1, 2026. Winners will be announced in Spring 2027.
Version 4.0 of the Vivli platform was released June 27, 2026 and is now available to users.
Release 4.0 includes several key improvements designed to enhance the user experience and support more secure, connected workflows:
Improved and updated platform navigation
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) enabled for all users to further enhance security
All Vivli resources and how to guides have been updated to reflect the latest release
“We are delighted to have added MFA to the Vivli platform to further enhance our security posture,” said Robert Conklin, Vivli Chief Technology Officer.
Global researchers used shared trial data to advance work in cancer, diabetes, and clinical trial design.
The Vivli Global Ambassador Program brought together a diverse group of researchers selected for their commitment to data transparency and leadership in advancing clinical research around the world.Through their use of shared clinical research data, these Ambassadors help promote responsible data sharing and reuse within their fields. Over the past year, the inaugural cohort has shown how data available through Vivli can be incorporated into active research programs to generate new findings, support scientific exchange, and create new opportunities for collaboration.One of the most important contributions of the program has been visibility. For many researchers, data reuse remains unfamiliar despite growing expectations around data sharing. Ambassadors helped bridge that gap by sharing their experiences at major scientific meetings and academic seminars across four continents, from the European Society for Radiation Oncology meeting in Vienna and the International Congress on Lung Cancer in Barcelona, to the Princess Takamatsu Symposium in Tokyo, the IATDMCT meeting in Singapore, and the Vivli Annual Meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In each setting they discussed both the outcomes of their work and the practical realities of conducting secondary research, walking colleagues through everything from the data application process to study design, and introducing investigators across disciplines to approaches that are increasingly shaping the research landscape.What follows is a closer look at the work of the individual ambassadors.
Dr. David McAllister (University of Glasgow, Scotland) used Vivli individual participant data (IPD) to drive a productive year of diabetes and trial-methodology research, publishing four peer-reviewed papers in 2025. These included a network meta-analysis of age and sex differences in the efficacy of treatments for type 2 diabetes, published in JAMA, and an IPD meta-analysis of frailty across trials of glucose-lowering therapies, published in PLOS Medicine, alongside further work on trial representativeness and trial attrition. Beyond his own publications, Dr. McAllister presented on Vivli as a research resource at the universities of Bristol, Edinburgh, and Glasgow and at an EU doctoral training network, is supervising PhD students working directly with Vivli IPD, and drew on his established relationship with Vivli to strengthen several major grant applications and new institutional collaborations.
Dr. Jonas Saal (University Hospital Bonn, Germany) focused his ambassador year on immuno-oncology biomarkers, presenting Vivli-derived analyses of the modified Glasgow Prognostic Score (mGPS) and progressive-disease classification — including its use in selecting patients for treatment beyond progression — at oncology and urology meetings such as the DGHO annual meeting and the AIO Herbstkongress, where his work earned a Young Investigator Award. His written output included a review in the European Journal of Canceron sodium and immunotherapy and a Frontiers in Immunology article on mGPS in hepatocellular carcinoma, building on a body of Vivli-based publications spanning immunotherapy beyond progression, metastatic urothelial carcinoma, and metastatic renal cell carcinoma. He described Vivli as “an enabler of collaborative, methodologically rigorous secondary research.”
Dr. Youssef Zeidan (Baptist Health South Florida, USA) advanced his breast cancer research program through Vivli, completing a pooled analysis of the TRYPHAENA and NeoSphere trials examining radiation therapy in clinically node-positive, HER2-positive breast cancer. “The VIVLI Ambassador program provided an outstanding opportunity to support my ongoing breast cancer research initiatives,” he wrote. The findings were presented at the European Society for Radiation Oncology (ESTRO) annual meeting in Vienna and published in BMC Cancer. The project also became a mentorship opportunity: the trainee who led the analysis, a medical student, went on to match into radiation oncology at Stanford. Dr. Zeidan’s continued partnership with Vivli has since produced a newly approved project applying the same approach to triple-negative breast cancer.
Dr. Ashley Hopkins (Flinders University, Australia) drew on Vivli-accessed data to investigate how concomitant medicines and patient characteristics shape cancer outcomes, with written outputs including studies on concomitant medicines and patient-reported outcomes in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a large-scale IPD meta-analysis of sex-based differences in solid-tumour outcomes (accepted in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute), and a breast-cancer outcomes paper led by a member of his team, Dr. Bradley Menz. Dr. Hopkins shared this work through an invited talk at IATDMCT 2025 in Singapore and an industry session on AI in oncology, while his engagement with the South Australian Comprehensive Cancer Network is now feeding directly into a new collaborative Vivli application on youth-onset cancers — and contributed to a PhD completion incorporating Vivli-derived work.
Dr. Diego Chowell (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, USA) championed responsible data sharing within the AI and computational immuno-oncology community, weaving the case for transparent, well-governed clinical and trial datasets into talks on tumor evolution, immune recognition, and immunotherapy response prediction at Princeton University, the Princess Takamatsu Symposium in Tokyo, the International Congress on Lung Cancer in Barcelona, and a scientific seminar at VHIO. His central message, that robust, externally validated AI models depend on access to shared, reusable data, resonated with audiences of oncologists, computational biologists, and trialists. He is now developing a Vivli data request to externally validate his SCORPIO model for immune-risk prediction and trial stratification, laying the groundwork for a future Vivli-enabled analysis.
Dr. Marco Valgimigli (Cardiocentro Ticino Institute, Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale, Lugano, Switzerland) carried the case for responsible clinical-trial data sharing into the interventional cardiology and cardiovascular pharmacology community, anchored in his own Vivli-enabled work. As Lead Investigator of the PANTHER collaborative initiative — an individual patient data meta-analysis comparing P2Y12 inhibitor monotherapy with aspirin for secondary prevention in coronary artery disease, conducted using datasets accessed through Vivli and published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology — he was able to present a completed, peer-reviewed project as a concrete proof of concept. He brought that example to talks and discussions at ESC Congress 2025 in Madrid, the inaugural EAPCI Summit 2026 in Munich, and FOKUS HERZ BERN 2026, and to direct engagement with trainees and collaborators at Cardiocentro Ticino, walking colleagues through the full arc of a Vivli data request to show how shared participant-level data enable rigorous, academically independent secondary research.
As the first year of the program concludes, the cohort’s accomplishments reflect a broader shift toward a research culture in which data are not only shared, but actively reused. Their work highlights the continued value of clinical research data and the new knowledge that can emerge when those data remain available to the scientific community.
For patients living with IBD, the two main types being Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis (UC), finding the right treatment is rarely a straight line.
Despite a growing number of effective therapies, clinicians face unresolved questions; which patients will respond to a given treatment, and how should we track progress? Through platforms like Vivli, investigators can access anonymized individual participant-level data from completed clinical research and use it to generate new evidence to advance understanding of IBD progression and improve treatment approaches.
Data used in these studies was made possible through Vivli’s data sharing platform, spanning a range of questions working to advance the field of IBD care.
Significant findings have emerged from researchers looking across multiple studies. By pooling individual patient-level data, Vipul Jairath and his team from Alimentiv found that placebo response rates vary significantly across UC trials. The same research group also examined how patient age affects the efficacy and safety of advanced therapies during induction in UC, finding that trial populations do not always reflect the broader, more complex patients seen in everyday practice. Knowing where evidence holds and where it has limits allows clinicians to apply it more appropriately.
Other work is tackling one of the more consequential problems in IBD care: identifying in advance which patients will respond to a given therapy. Neeraj Narula and colleagues at Hamilton Health Sciences found that eosinophil levels in blood and tissue predict which UC patients are likely to benefit from mirikizumab, a biologic therapy. For patients who have cycled through multiple treatments without success, a reliable predictor of response before starting therapy could mean the difference between months of ineffective treatment and a faster path to remission. The same research group also found that early endoscopic changes during treatment can identify Crohn’s disease patients whose response is delayed, giving clinicians a window to intervene earlier in the treatment course.
Not all insights emerging from this research are purely biological. Shenghong Zhang and colleagues at Sun Yat-sen University found that early improvement in mental health symptoms predicts long-term disease remission in UC. IBD is typically monitored through endoscopy and blood tests. The finding suggests that psychological state during treatment may carry more clinical information than is currently recognized, and that a more complete picture of disease control may require looking beyond biology alone.
Behind each of these studies are patients who enrolled in research in the hope that their experience would help others. That contribution does not end at publication. IBD affects millions of people worldwide, and for many, the path to effective treatment involves years of diagnostic delay, failed therapies, and significant impact on quality of life. The work being done with Vivli-accessed data is producing findings that are reshaping how the field understands treatment response, disease monitoring, and the design of future research. Each new analysis builds on the last. This cumulative progress exists because study sponsors are meeting their obligations to participants, ensuring research data is used responsibly beyond the original study.
Learn more about accessing data through Vivli at vivli.org
Recent gastroenterology and IBD public disclosures associated with Vivli-hosted data include:
In response to growing demand for secure, responsible clinical data sharing across Europe—and the increasing complexity of the evolving regulatory and research environment—Vivli has appointed Jennifer O’Callaghan as Executive Director of Vivli Europe, starting April 16, 2026.
Jennifer will lead the newly established Netherlands-based stichting (foundation), bringing deep expertise in clinical data sharing and the governance of responsible secondary use of clinical research data. Her experience spans roles as a research funder, advisor to multi-stakeholder consortia, and executive within global pharmaceutical organizations.
Leading the European organization, Jennifer will shape strategy and engage partners to enable greater access to high-quality data for researchers across Europe. She will ensure that activities align with the region’s regulatory frameworks and drive initiatives to expand collaboration among industry, academia, and policymakers.
“Europe is at a pivotal moment for clinical research data sharing, and Jennifer brings a rare depth of knowledge in this rapidly evolving field,” said Vivli’s Chief Executive Officer, Rebecca Li. “Strong regional leadership is critical as we accelerate research and expand access to trusted data that can improve patient outcomes. Jennifer’s leadership will be instrumental in advancing Vivli’s mission, scaling impact, and strengthening partnerships across the region.”
Jennifer has been involved with Vivli for over a decade, serving on the foundational working group that established high standards for patient privacy, governance, and transparency while fostering collaboration across pharma, biotech, academia, and the research community to produce new insights.
“At a time of surging demand for data, Europe faces the dual challenge of increasingly complex regulation and the need to balance patient privacy with responsible data innovation, including AI,” said Jennifer O’Callaghan, Executive Director of Vivli Europe. “Vivli Europe will play a central role in meeting this challenge through responsible data sharing in compliance with EU legislation.”
For 4,484 patients enrolled across five Phase III oncology trials, the answer to an urgent question may have been present in their blood from the start. A study conducted using individual patient data accessed through Vivli, found that the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), derived from a standard complete blood count, independently predicted overall survival and progression-free survival across lung, colorectal, and gastric cancers. The findings were published in Frontiers in Oncology in July 2025.
Dr. Christian Lood, an Associate Professor at the University of Washington specializing in neutrophil biology and biomarker development, has spent his career building the case that neutrophils play a far more consequential role in cancer than the field has historically recognized.
“There is an emerging sense that neutrophils are instrumental in tumor development, he said. I wanted to highlight their unique role in cancer, to further development of novel biomarkers as well as therapeutic targets that are currently not considered in the field.”
Prior studies had proposed NLR as a prognostic marker, but inconsistent findings and limited large-scale validation had kept it from routine clinical use. The scale of data available through Vivli changed what was possible. By accessing records from five Eli Lilly-sponsored Phase III trials spanning three cancer types, Dr. Lood’s team conducted an analysis that earlier work could not support.
“Access to data through Vivli allowed us to analyze a larger patient population and wider variety of treatments than would have been feasible in a standard clinical setting,” he noted.
Baseline NLR proved to be an independent predictor of survival outcomes after adjusting for age, sex, and disease stage. Predictive performance was strongest in patients under 60, non-White patients, those with Stage IV disease, and those with lower functional status at baseline, a pattern that argues against uniform thresholds across populations. Longitudinal NLR change added little beyond the baseline reading. The initial measurement carries the primary prognostic signal.
Dr. Lood hopes the findings move NLR closer to routine use in oncology and open a research direction focused on soluble markers of neutrophil activation, which may prove more sensitive than cell counts alone in identifying patients with poor prognosis.
“I hope our research will trigger more studies into the potential clinical utility of neutrophil activation biomarkers in cancer patients,” he said.
The individual patient data from the five trials used in this analysis remain available through Vivli.
Further Reading
Performance of the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio as a prognostic tool for survival in solid cancers — Frontiers in Oncology (July 2025)
Version 3.9 of the Vivli platform was released February 28th, 2026 and is now available to users. Highlights of the release include:
Updated Organization Administrator Dashboard: Organization Administrators now have an improved dashboard showing Data Requests, Publications, Data Upload, and Enquiries awaiting their action. Dashboard information can also be downloaded.
Multi-Factor Authentication: Multi-factor authentication for user login is being rolled out over the coming weeks. Users will receive an email before this is activated on their account.
Data Request Form Enhancements: Users can now download the data request form, compare different versions of the form as a PDF as part of the version history of a request, and remove a research team member while a request is in draft.
Data Request Summary Report: A new report of the Data Request Summary is available for your team to access at any time.
All Vivli resources and how to guides have been updated to reflect the latest release
“Vivli is delighted to provided additional benefit to our users, which we have prioritized enhancing these features based upon their feedback,” said Julie Wood, COO Vivli. “We would encourage all users to sign up to provide feedback so we can continue to improve the platform to meet their needs”
Researchers can complete the form below to sign up and take part in user interviews.
Note: For the best experience of the Vivli platform and to ensure you are accessing the latest version, please clear your cache in your preferred browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge are all supported). If you experience any problems after clearing your cache, please contact us at support@vivli.org.
Byeongzu Ghang is an Associate Professor and Rheumatology Specialist in the Jeju National University School of Medicine, Jeju, Korea. His primary research and clinical focus is on gout, inflammatory myositis, and interstitial lung disease (ILD). Dr. Ghang’s team submitted a research proposal to access Vivli to conduct analysis relevant to their topic, “Reanalysis of CARES study to investigate the changes of estimated glomerular filtration rate after long-term febuxostat or allopurinol treatment in gout patients.” The team’s completed research has recently been presented to the research community in publications including the Journal of Rheumatic Diseases and Kidney International. He sat down with Vivli to tell us more about accessing individual participant data to advance this research, and the potential for using biomarkers to improve clinical research focus and therapeutic targets.
Tell us more about your research. What is the current state of management in your public disclosure topic?
Our research focuses on the impact of urate-lowering therapy (ULT) in delaying the progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in patients with gout. Through a post-hoc analysis of the CARES trial, we discovered that maintaining low serum uric acid (sUA) levels, particularly below 6 mg/dL, is significantly associated with a reduced risk of CKD progression. This finding challenges earlier conclusions drawn from trials on asymptomatic hyperuricemia, which often excluded patients with gout. Currently, ULT remains underutilized in CKD management, with uncertainty surrounding its benefits for kidney function. Our study provides compelling evidence supporting its protective role in gout patients.
What led you to want to research this topic?
The intersection of gout, hyperuricemia, and CKD is a clinical area with considerable unmet needs. While hyperuricemia is linked to CKD progression, whether this relationship is causal has been debated. My clinical experiences with gout patients experiencing CKD progression, combined with the lack of robust evidence in this domain, motivated me to explore whether ULT could serve as a meaningful intervention. Furthermore, the potential of addressing CKD progression through a modifiable risk factor like sUA levels was an appealing avenue for research.
What difference do you hope your research might make in the field/for patients and how has it moved forward the treatment of patients?
We aim to bridge the gap in understanding the renal benefits of ULT specifically for gout patients, a group often overlooked in earlier trials. By demonstrating that sustained low sUA levels correlate with stable or improved renal function, our findings can influence clinical guidelines to integrate ULT more robustly into CKD management for gout patients. This research could ultimately improve patient outcomes by reducing CKD progression, thereby decreasing dialysis dependency and associated healthcare burdens.
How could your findings be used in future clinical trials on this disease area?
Our findings provide a strong rationale for designing clinical trials focusing on ULT in gout patients with varying CKD stages. Future studies could investigate optimal sUA targets, the long-term renal outcomes of ULT, and the role of MSU crystal reduction in kidney protection. Furthermore, the mechanistic insights from our study can guide the exploration of novel therapeutic targets in CKD progression.
How did the data you accessed through Vivli help you in answering your research question?
The Vivli platform was instrumental in providing patient-level data from the CARES trial. This enabled us to perform a detailed post-hoc analysis, including propensity score matching and multivariable regression, to evaluate the relationship between sUA levels and CKD progression. Without this access, it would have been impossible to derive such granular insights into the renal benefits of ULT.
What was your experience like in the process of requesting data using the Vivli platform?
The Vivli platform provided a seamless experience in requesting and accessing trial data. Its user-friendly interface and comprehensive repository allowed us to identify and utilize relevant datasets efficiently. The robust data-sharing policies and support provided by Vivli enhanced the overall research process.
Would you use the Vivli platform again? Would you recommend Vivli to others? What improvements would you recommend?
Absolutely, I would use Vivli again and highly recommend it to other researchers. It is a valuable tool for accelerating scientific discovery. However, one area for improvement could be the inclusion of more real-time assistance during the application process, especially for first-time users navigating data access requirements.
What advice would you give to other researchers about doing this kind of analysis?
Thoroughly understand the dataset and its limitations before diving into analysis. Predefine your hypotheses and statistical methods to maintain rigor and transparency. Also, collaborating with experts in biostatistics and clinical data interpretation can add significant value. Lastly, platforms like Vivli are invaluable for accessing high-quality data, so researchers should familiarize themselves with such resources.
Ghang B, Kim J, Yoo. BPOS0284 CHANGES OF ESTIMATED GLOMERULAR FILTRATION RATE AFTER LONG-TERM FEBUXOSTAT OR ALLOPURINOL TREATMENT IN GOUT PATIENTS. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 2022; 81:386. https://ard.bmj.com/content/81/Suppl_1/386.1.full
Byeongzu Ghang, Jinseok Kim. Effects of long-term febuxostat or allopurinol on the progression of chronic kidney disease. Journal of Rheumatic Diseases, Vol. 29, Suppl. 1, May 2022 p271 O-54.
Ghang, B. Delayed progression of chronic kidney disease in gout patients during urate-lowering therapy: A patient-level post-hoc analysis of the CARES trial. International Journal of Rheumatic Diseases, 27 (Suppl. 2) P013. http://doi.org/10.1111/1756-185X.15172.
Ghang, B., Park, J., Lee, J.S., Lim, J.S., Kim, H., Liew, D.F., Kim, J., Kang, D.H. and Yoo, B., 2024. Post-hoc analysis of the CARES trial suggests delayed progression of chronic kidney disease in patients with gout during urate-lowering therapy. Kidney International. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.kint.2024.10.022.
