Bioinformatics Shared Resource (BIOINF)

Our staff work closely with principal investigators and other members of the research team to define the nature and scope of relevant bioinformatics needs, as well as the type(s) of omics data to be collected and analyzed to achieve the study objectives. This includes detailed discussion on the hypothesis of interest, preliminary data-mining strategies using public data repositories, consideration of the appropriate high-throughput techniques, employment of the optimal experiment design scheme, and anticipated limitations of the data. 

We provide exploratory data-mining support for the development of the preliminary data section. We review — and, in general, develop — the bioinformatics analysis plan for the majority of CCSG and Roswell Park grant applications.

We perform bioinformatics analysis and data mining of various omics and other biological datasets. We assist investigators with the integration of omics data with clinical information and develop analytical models for these data based on the hypothesis of interest.

We provide well-established data processing, visualization and analysis pipelines and workflows for various multi-omics and imaging applications at both single cells and cells in bulk levels.

Bioinformatics personnel also perform in silico analysis (such as pathway and function enrichment analysis, and gene network analysis) and assist investigators with finding plausible biological and/or clinical interpretations of their respective results.

Our team, serving as scientific collaborators, review and write the bioinformatics analysis section of the manuscript of interest and provide the relevant interpretation of the data models as they relate to the conclusions presented in the given manuscript.

We provide a range of educational opportunities to students, fellows, research staff and faculty. These include hands-on workshops, one-on-one consultations, lectures, seminars, webinars and courses on topics such as study design, analysis methods and workflow implementation.

We contribute to the development of the underlying informatics infrastructure in close collaboration with the IT department in order to provide CCSG investigators with access to data warehousing and computing resources for storing, managing, analyzing and sharing omics data and other types of data.  Members of our staff serve on the IT Advisory Board, where they make recommendations on key data management and computer system infrastructure. It is critical that they participate in decision making in order to ensure the right data in the correct format flows into the appropriate data repositories.

The Bioinformatics Shared Resource personnel collect and test available bioinformatics products in order to help investigators select the appropriate tools for their specific studies.

The Bioinformatics Shared Resource team develops customized bioinformatics tools, interactive web applications and underlying back-end databases, as necessary, when existing products are unavailable or do not meet the customized needs of CCSG investigators relative to answering specific study objectives. Whenever possible, we make these tools available to the broader cancer research community.