Bioinformatics Shared Resource

Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem NC

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

BIOINFORMATICS SHARED RESOURCE (BISR): PROJECT SUMMARY The rapid generation of highly complex biological and clinical data, along with the evolution of proteomics, metabolomics, imaging, deep-learning, and single-cell analysis provides unprecedented opportunities for cancer research. Concomitantly, it also presents major challenges for analyzing, integrating, interpreting, and sharing these data. In 2017, based on feedback from internal and external advisors and the expanding bioinformatics needs of the Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center (WFBCCC) members, the former Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Shared Resource was divided into two independent, but highly collaborative, shared resources: the Biostatistics Shared Resource (BSSR) and the Bioinformatics Shared Resource (BISR). The BISR was established by Co-Director Wei Zhang, PhD, who later recruited Umit Topaloglu, PhD, to serve as Co-Director. The primary goal of BISR is to provide bioinformatics, data, and computational support for state-of- the-art multi-omics, clinical, and population research efforts at WFBCCC. BISR is responsible for bioinformatics and high-performance computing support, including study design, data analysis, visualization, and storage, and preparation of peer-reviewed publications and grant applications. In response to WFBCCC members’ rapidly growing demand, BISR expanded the genomic data analyses from traditional platforms (e.g., microarray, sequencing) to the newest state-of-the-art genomics technologies, including 10X single-cell RNAseq, Visium Spatial gene expression, ATAC-seq, and SPLiT-seq. Working closely with other WFBCCC Shared Resources, especially the Cancer Genomics and the Proteomics and Metabolomics Shared Resources, BISR integrates WFBCCC investigators’ analytic needs for genomics/proteomics/metabolomics for multi-omics projects. BISR provides data support, management, and sharing for public omics databases such as TCGA, AACR GENIE, CCLE, as well as data from WFBCCC’s Precision Oncology Initiative. It also uses the institutionally maintained Translational Data Warehouse and the WFBCCC Cancer Registry. A cost-effective computational solution has been established with Google Cloud computing, which has clocked more than 3.2 million computing hours. The services provided by BISR increased by more than 200% since 2017, providing more than 22,900 service-hours since 2017 to 186 researchers, of whom 137 (>73%) are WFBCCC members. Among the 59 WFBCCC publications BISR contributed to, 13 have been published to date in high-impact journals (e.g., Lancet Oncol, JAMA Oncol, Nat Commun, J Exp Med, Cancer Commun, Nucleic Acids Res, and Mol Cancer). BISR provided support for 16 WFBCCC funded grants since 2017 to date: 1 U54 grant, 3 R01 grants, 1 R21, 2 NCI Administrative Supplements, 4 DoD grants, 1 SU2C grant, 1 ACS grant, and 3 Foundation grants (1 ACSR grant, 1 V Foundation grant, and 1 NFCR grant). Based on the trending utilization data, BISR anticipates that the service requests to the BISR will continue to increase by at least 30% every year, and expected to be covered 50/50 by extramural funding and increased WFBCCC intramural support.