Cancer Bioinformatics Services

Abstract: Cancer Bioinformatics Services (CBS) The complexity of cancer genome studies—from whole exome, whole genome, methylation, and RNA sequencing to emerging applications such as single cell and immunogenetic sequencing—poses significant challenges in data analysis and computing. The aim of the Cancer Bioinformatics Services (CBS) is to assist Hillman Cancer Center (HCC) investigators with bioinformatics data analysis, provide high performance computing and storage, and create high-value data sources such as the regulatory compliant local repository of TCGA data known as Pittsburgh Genome Resource Repository. CBS, with scientific support from the Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI), is co-directed by Drs. Chandran and Bao, and includes two full- time master’s level analysts and partial effort for several additional analysts. CBS supports all genomics studies from individual investigator projects to collaborative and consortia projects with expertise in genomic analysis, metadata annotation, data integration, HPC computing, genomics data privacy and data sharing policies. CBS is a highly collaborative effort involving CBS staff, DBMI faculty, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (an NSF infrastructure), the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Research Computing, the Institute of Precision Medicine, and the Health Science Library System’s Molecular Biology Service. In addition, CBS works closely with other HCC shared resources including the Biostatistics Facility, Cancer Genomics Facility, and Tissue and Research Pathology Services.