NCI Cancer Research Data Commons Workshop at AMIA 2019 Annual Symposium

Dr. Ian Fore and Dr. Tanja Davidsen will co-lead a collaborative workshop on the NCI Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC) during the 2019 American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Annual Symposium.

Basic and clinical research in cancer is increasingly focused on generation of rich datasets to identify the molecular basis for disease and to match targeted therapies that factor in each patient’s unique biology. To progress towards this goal, the cancer research community will need to access, integrate, and analyze many different types of data, including genomics, proteomics, microbiomics, metabolomics, cancer models, clinical treatment and outcomes, multi-resolution, multi-modality imaging data, population-based data, and data contributed by health care providers and patients themselves. Investment in the informatics infrastructure to fully leverage these diverse data types is imperative and was called out as a priority by the Cancer Moonshot℠ Blue Ribbon Panel. To this end, NCI has initiated development of the NCI CRDC to provide access to interoperable data repositories, analysis tools, and workspaces. The vision for the NCI CRDC is a virtual, expandable infrastructure that provides secure access to diverse data types, allowing users to analyze, share, and store results, leveraging the storage and elastic compute of the cloud.

This workshop will provide a brief overview of the vision and status of the CRDC and facilitate an interactive discussion with participants on its future direction. The discussion will focus on key topics to gain insights from the informatics community on how they would envision optimal use of the platform and what content and functionality will be of most value to them. Participants can expect to come away with an understanding of the NCI CRDC, its current and future state, and how to remain engaged in influencing the program. Feedback, recommendations, and priorities provided by participants will be recorded and made available to participants and the wider community of interest, forming the basis of on-going communications and engagement with the NCI CRDC program. The workshop will also identify important data management questions towards which the informatics community might direct their efforts.