Drs. Daoud Meerzaman of NCI’s Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (CBIIT) and Barbara K. Dunn of NCI’s Biometry Research Group recently served as Guest Editors for a special virtual issue of the journal, Frontiers in Oncology.

This collection of articles shows how ‘omics data are helping scientists to better understand the prevention, detection, and treatment of cancer. The issue explores the full range of ‘omics findings, from identifying biomarkers for diagnosing and treating cancer, to uncovering the mechanisms for disease.

“Our goal was to show how large-scale, high-throughput sequencing technologies (genome, transcriptome, proteome), coupled with deep machine learning, are leading to an exponential growth in data-driven solutions in cancer research,” said Dr. Meerzaman.

He added, “This work is directly in line with what we do here at CBIIT, where we collect and combine diverse data types. To conduct studies with ‘omics data, researchers require centralized, well-curated, and readily accessible data, and NCI’s Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC) offers such a resource. The CRDC is able to accommodate large-scale data sets in a cloud-based infrastructure. Those data cut across different data types and scientific domains, allowing users to access, analyze, share, and store results.” 

Though only a sampling of findings from the cancer ‘omics field, this comprehensive issue shows how rapidly this area of research is advancing, as well as its potential for addressing some of today’s most pressing research questions.

Read the full issue in Frontiers in Oncology.