The HealthGrid.US Alliance (HG.US) is a partnership of scientific, medical and technology professionals from academia, industry and government, whose shared mission is to promote the application of advanced information technology to solve cutting-edge problems in Biomedical Science and Healthcare. The HG.US technology focus includes Distributed and High-Performance Computer and Communication Systems and Cyberinfrastructure, notably Grid architectures and Knowledge Engineering techniques. HG.US encourages open, interoperable systems and standards but is specifically technology neutral. HG.US is an affiliate of the international HealthGrid Association.

Many biomedical and health related problems are characterized by diverse collaborators needing access to great quantities of complex heterogeneous data, which is distributed across multiple computing systems, maintained by loosely connected institutions, often across international boundaries. Example projects addressing these challenges include sharing datasets to enable a cure for cancer (caBIG, ACGT) and science portals that enable neuroscientists to better visualize the morphology of the brain (BIRN). These and other projects have begun to demonstrate the power and potential of the Grid approach in biomedicine.

Initially, Grid technology development was driven by computing needs of the particle physics research community and enabled by the availability of high-performance networks. The term "grid" rapidly evolved toward a concept of ubiquitous and transparent computing to support a wide variety of applications, and builds on the well-known metaphor of the pervasive "electricity grid". Today, the HealthGrid space represents some of the most interesting drivers for progress in knowledge-based ubiquitous and transparent computing.

The international HealthGrid Association, based in Europe, provides a firm conceptual foundation for efforts in the US and is fully supportive of the HealthGrid.US Alliance. A HealthGrid white paper articulates the broad scope of the concept. US government agencies have begun to develop complementary strategies. These have been captured in TATRC’s Integrated Research Team strategic report on HealthGrid: Grid Technologies for Biomedicine and the US Government interagency HealthGrid Core Strategic Planning Group.

The HealthGrid represents a community both virtual and real. There have been five HealthGrid Annual Meetings (2003-2007) in Europe with formal published proceedings. These are also available from proceedings.healthgrid.org. The Sixth International meeting will be held outside of Europe for the first time in Chicago, Illinois, USA, June 2-4 2008. See the announcement (pdf).