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NCI Data Science at the 2023 AACR Annual Meeting
The 2023 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting brings the cancer research community together to advance the frontiers of cancer science and medicine. This includes many data science topics, which we’ve compiled here.
We’ll continue to update the details on this webpage as we get closer to the event. Check back often, and keep an eye on our Twitter page for up-to-date news!
If you are attending this year’s meeting, join our staff at the following:
April 15, 2023, 8:00–9:30 a.m. ET
Accessible Computational Platforms for Large-Scale Data Analyses (Session)
If you want to know more about software tools for analyzing large cancer data sets, make sure to catch this session where investigators funded by Informatics Technology for Cancer Research will cover Galaxy, cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics, and the Xena Functional Genomics Explorer.
April 15, 2023, 10:30–10:50 a.m. ET
HTAN Data in the NCI Cancer Research Data Commons (Presentation)
Attend this presentation to learn about how you can discover, explore, and analyze Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) data alongside NCI-funded data sets using the Cancer Data Service portal and Velsara’s Cancer Genomics Cloud. You can use these tools to help you make data-driven discoveries.
NCI Presenter: Erika Kim, Ph.D.
April 15, 2023, 12:30–2:00 p.m. ET
#DataMatter: Leveraging NCI Datasets for Cancer Discovery and Impact (Presentation)
In this session, hear Dr. Barnholtz-Sloan discuss using NCI data sets to advance cancer research, including examples of how these data have helped us move from histopathological diagnosis to molecular based diagnosis of cancer. You’ll also learn about new discoveries that have led to changes in diagnosis and treatment and enabled a more detailed, critical understanding of disease burden at the population level.
NCI Presenter: Jill S. Barnholtz-Sloan, Ph.D.
April 15, 2023, 2:30–4:00 p.m. ET
Leveraging Geospatial Data and Methods for Studies of Environment and Cancer (Presentation)
Are you interested in geospatial data science and commonly used tools for cancer epidemiology? This presentation will focus on the use of large, geo-referenced data sets, finely resolved GPS monitoring/mobile technologies/smartphone data, and methods like machine learning to support environmental exposure assessments for studies of cancer risk. Hear Dr. Jones describe the application of these approaches using examples from her intramural research program, which investigates the environmental etiologies of cancer.
NCI Presenter: Rena Jones, Ph.D.
April 16, 2023, 1:00–2:00 p.m. ET
Implementation of the NIH Final Policy for Data Management and Sharing for the National Cancer Institute (NCI Special Session)
Want to know more about the NIH Data Management and Sharing (DMS) policy? The policy, effective on January 25, 2023, has many expectations for data management and sharing. During this educational session, get an overview of the DMS policy and its expectations and resources. There will also be a Q&A panel discussion.
NCI Presenters: Emily Boja, Ph.D., Heather Basehore, Ph.D., Brandon Wright, Ph.D., and Nathan Boyd, Ph.D.
April 16, 2023, 1:30–5:00 p.m. ET
CENP-E Inhibitors Activate cGAS-STING Pathway by Inducing Chromosome Misalignment and Micronucleation after Mitotic Slippage (Poster)
Explore how NCI's Accelerating Therapeutics for Opportunities in Medicine Consortium seeks to transform drug discovery by developing more effective therapies. This poster—from lead author Dr. Akihiro Ohashi of the National Cancer Center of Japan and co-author Dr. Pinyi Lu of the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR)—will provide you the opportunity to learn about how inhibition of a promising target activated a new and vital immune signal pathway, which could be a new way to treat cancer. You can also learn more about AI-based drug discovery, which aims to generate new inhibitors through virtual screening and generative molecular design.
April 16, 2023, 2:00–2:20 p.m. ET
Next Generation Transcriptomics-Based Precision Oncology (Presentation)
To expand treatment opportunities in precision oncology, recent studies explore the utility of tumor transcriptome in guiding patients’ treatment. This session will spotlight SELECT and ENLIGHT, which aim to predict patient response from the tumor transcriptome. You will also hear about DeepPT—a precision oncology, expression-based approach that starts from tumor histopathological images—and the development of Liquid-based transcriptomics for predicting patient response.
NCI Presenter: Eytan Ruppin, M.D., Ph.D.
April 17, 2023, 9:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. ET
NCI’s Broad-Use Collections: Accelerating Discovery Process by Improving Access to Individual-Level Genomics and Other -Omics Data (Poster)
Stop by this poster if you’re interested in how NCI’s broad-use collections within the database of Genotypes and Phenotypes can impact research and discovery.
NCI Presenter: Freddie Pruitt, Ph.D.
April 17, 2023, 12:30–1:30 p.m. ET
Attend this session to learn about the benefit of seeking both an NCI collaboration and applying for direct funding via the Small Business Innovative Research Program for projects including the development of new technologies from data pipelines.
There will also be a Meet the Expert session at the NCI booth on April 18, 2023, at 12:00 p.m. ET.
NCI Presenters: Michael Salgaller, Ph.D., James Gulley, M.D., Ph.D., Michael Pollack, Ph.D., and Patti Weber, Dr.PH.
April 18, 2023, 1:30–5:00 p.m. ET
Systematic Evaluation and Comparison of Drug Response Prediction Models: A Case Study of Prediction Generalization Across Cell Lines Datasets (Poster)
If you’re interested in how drug response prediction (DRP) models generalize predictions across data sets of multiple drug screening studies, be sure to visit this poster! You’ll hear Dr. Ryan Weil of FNLCR present on predictive modeling improving personalized cancer treatment and areas where DRP has outperformed classical machine learning.
April 18, 2023, 2:30–3:30 p.m. ET
Human Cancer Models Initiative: A Resource of Next-Gen Cancer Models and Data (Session)
This session will give you the opportunity to learn more about the Human Cancer Models Initiative—an international consortium that generated patient derived next-generation cancer models from diverse tumor subtypes. You can access the models, together with biospecimen, clinical, and molecular characterization data.
There will also be a Meet the Expert session at the NCI booth on April 17, 2023, at 1:00 p.m. ET.
NCI Presenters: Eva Tonsing-Carter, Ph.D., and Julyann Perez-Mayoral, Ph.D.
Tuesday April 18, 4:00–5:00 p.m. ET
OmicCircos in the Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC): A Visualization Tool for Bench Biologists (NCI Special Session)
Don’t miss this session, where Dr. Erika Kim will moderate presentations on the CRDC, Velsara’s Cancer Genomics Cloud (with Dr. Zelia Worman presenting), and an introduction and demonstration of OmicCircos.
NCI Presenters: Erika Kim, Ph.D., and Chunhua Yan, Ph.D.
April 19, 2023, 9:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. ET
A Path to Sustainability for the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Research Data Commons (Poster)
We know that efficient collection, curation, and sharing of data produced by the biomedical research community is important for the discovery of new patterns for diagnosis, treatment, and care of disease. The CRDC, which provides cloud-based, secure storage and analytic tools for cancer data, is important for these goals. If you want to learn more about the plan for the CRDC achieving long-term sustainability, make sure you go to this poster presentation!
NCI Presenter: Juergen A. Klenk, Ph.D.
April 17, 2023, 4:00–5:00 p.m. ET
Located at NCI’s booth (#809)
The Pediatric Data Hour (Meet the Expert Session)
Spend an hour learning about pediatric data initiatives from the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI) Data Ecosystem and the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Program. In this session, you’ll hear about the objectives and various components of the ecosystem of tools and data from CCDI, as well as a discussion about leveraging existing pediatric data from the Gabriella Miller Kids First Data Resource. There will be a demo of the Kids First Data Resource.
NCI Presenters: Joe Flores-Toro, Ph.D.
NCI booth (#809)
Stop by to discuss cancer data science topics with individuals from CBIIT at the following times:
April 16, 2023
3:00–5:00 p.m. ET, Freddie Pruitt
April 17, 2023
9:00–11:00 a.m. ET, Erika Kim
11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET, Ying Huang
3:00–5:00 p.m. ET, Nathan Boyd
April 18, 2023
9:00–11:00 a.m. ET, Mousumi Ghosh
11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. ET, Sylvia Gayle
3:00–5:00 p.m. ET, Joe Flores-Toro
April 19, 2023
9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. ET, Heather Basehore
April 14–19, 2023
Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research booth (#2144)
See a demonstration of computational resources developed by the NCI-DOE Collaboration. They will be demonstrating the Computational Resources for Cancer Resource Portal. Learn about research projects that can impact your work!
Additional Opportunities
If you’re interested in funding and career training opportunities where you can apply data science, consider the following sessions!
- April 16, 2023, 4:00–5:00 p.m. ET | NCI Funding Opportunities in Cancer Immunoprevention and Chemoprevention
- April 17, 2023, 4:00–5:00 p.m. ET | NIH Grants Session: Updates on Funding Policies and Review of NCI Applications
- April 18, 2023, 10:15–11:15 a.m. ET | Intramural and Extramural Training and Cancer Development Awards and Opportunities