A leading research university's health sciences division partnered with Relevance Lab to build a Secure Research Environment on AWS using Research Gateway, enabling HIPAA-aligned collaboration between internal and external researchers. The result: isolated project workspaces with controlled data ingress and egress, centralized governance across multiple research labs, and a repeatable framework supporting AI/ML, GPU-enabled computing, and future research initiatives.
The Academic Medical Center is a world-renowned research institution with a long history of scientific innovation and medical breakthroughs. Researchers across the AMC conduct leading-edge work in clinical research, biomedical informatics, disease prevention, medical imaging, precision medicine, and
AI-driven healthcare innovation.
As research programs expanded and collaboration with external institutions increased, the AMC sought a secure and scalable platform that would enable researchers to access sensitive biomedical datasets while maintaining strict security, privacy, and regulatory compliance requirements.
To address this challenge, the AMC partnered with Relevance Lab to design and implement a Secure Research Environment (SRE) powered by the Research Gateway platform on AWS.
Technical Deployment Blueprint
Explore the Secure Research Environment architecture, Research Gateway deployment, AWS multi-account governance model, HIPAA-aligned security controls, controlled data ingress/egress workflows, and business outcomes behind this biomedical research cloud modernization.
View the Full Case StudyBusiness Challenge
The University's Health Sciences was launching collaborative research initiatives involving highly sensitive biomedical and healthcare datasets. These initiatives required secure access for researchers across multiple institutions while ensuring compliance with HIPAA and institutional governance requirements.
Solution
Relevance Lab worked closely with the University's Health Sciences, the University's IT, and institutional security teams to design and deploy a cloud-native Secure Research Environment using Research Gateway.
The resulting solution established a secure research enclave architecture where sensitive datasets could only enter or leave the environment through approved governance workflows. Researchers gained access to isolated project workspaces equipped with the tools and computing resources required for their studies, while administrators maintained centralized oversight and control.
Architecture Highlights
The Secure Research Environment was designed around five foundational principles.
Research Gateway: Purpose-Built for Secure Biomedical Research
Academic medical centers and health sciences institutions rely on Relevance Lab to design Secure Research Environments that protect sensitive biomedical and patient-related data while keeping researchers productive. Our expertise spans HIPAA-aligned architectures, Secure Research Environments (SRE), Research Gateway, controlled data ingress/egress workflows, and AI/ML-enabled research computing on AWS.
By pairing deep AWS security and compliance expertise with hands-on experience in biomedical and clinical research workflows, we help institutions replace isolated on-premises infrastructure with governed, self-service cloud environments — giving researchers the flexibility to innovate while meeting the rigorous data protection standards healthcare research demands.