Cancer Data Science Pulse

“Count Me In” (CMI) is a unique project that gives patients an opportunity to share their cancer-related data directly with scientists. According to Corrie Painter, associate director of CMI, this is a largely untapped but vital part of data science. Here she describes the project and what it could mean for future research efforts.

On October 20th, NCI launched the Imaging Data Commons (IDC), the latest data repository to be offered within the Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC) infrastructure. Through the IDC, both researchers and clinicians will have access to a wide range of cancer-related images, including radiology and pathology imaging data, as well as their accompanying metadata.

Dr. Tony Kerlavage, director of NCI’s Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (CBIIT), sat down to discuss one key component of racial inequality, the issue of health disparities, as it relates to Big Data. As noted by Dr. Kerlavage, representing our diverse U.S. population in research and in the workforce are key, but we also need better data.

The explosion of genetic information and direct access to large-scale genomic data not only opens up new areas for exploring today's most pressing research questions, it also serves as a reminder of the importance of collaboration at every stage of the study. NCI’s Dr. Daoud Meerzaman describes a new "circular" way of collaborating that keeps everyone in the loop when devising new genomics studies.

This new blog installment shines a spotlight on the staff who are working to turn data and IT resources into solutions for addressing data-driven cancer research. This spotlight features Sherri de Coronado, program manager in the CBIIT Cancer Informatics Branch.

NCI initiatives are accumulating a wealth of data from the fields of genomics, proteomics, single-cell, radiology, molecular imaging, clinical findings, and more. The newly awarded Cancer Data Aggregator (CDA) is currently being designed and developed to allow scientists to crosstalk among these very diverse data sets, facilitating interoperability not only within the Cancer Research Data Commons but throughout the larger data ecosystem.

The quest to harmonize data has ushered in a new way of thinking about standardization. Now, rather than expecting everyone to adopt a particular model or standard, we’re seeking to leverage technology that can do some of this work for us. The DREAM Challenge was designed to make aggregating and mapping data to the correct lexicon of terms and metadata a nearly seamless step for researchers. Read more about the Challenge that’s currently underway and how we hope to address harmonization in the future.

This new blog installment shines a spotlight on the staff who are working to turn data and IT resources into solutions for addressing data-driven cancer research. Here we feature Mervi Heiskanen, Ph.D., program manager in the Cancer Informatics Branch at CBIIT. Much of her work focuses on data sharing and creating the tools and resources that help to make open data a reality.