Data center services provider io and network carrier Cox Business are building a disaster recovery network for the International Genomics Consortium (IGC) to strengthen the cancer research organization’s information security, io said earlier this week.

The companies are building a direct fiber link between IGC’s headquarters and io’s data center in Phoenix. IGC believes a stronger disaster-recovery infrastructure will make it a stronger competitor for federal research contracts.

David Neal, IGC’s chief financial officer, said the new DR network will make the non-profit more appealing to government agencies.

“Cox Business and io have the technical expertise we required to expand our own security standards as well as to provide assurance to the government and other research partners that data and services remain secure and operational at all times,” Neal said.

Building on discoveries made by the Human Genome Project, IGC, using its network of hospitals, collects tissue cancer researchers are interested in studying. The organization also collects and processes data about the tissue.

IGC does this work for The Cancer Genome Atlas project, a federally-funded project to map DNA sequence changes that trigger the 200-plus known forms of cancer.