News

Keep up with the latest news from the NCI Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (CBIIT) and the data science communities.

The NCI R50 Award encourages the development of stable research career opportunities for exceptional scientists who want to pursue research within the context of an existing cancer research program, but not serve as independent investigators.

A new Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), “Genomic Data Analysis Network: Genomic Data Analysis Center (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed),” is soliciting applications for highly collaborative Genome Data Analysis Centers that will form the Genomic Data Analysis Network. Applications are due Thursday, November 12, 2020, at 5:00 p.m. ET.

The NCI's Cancer Research Data Commons' Proteomic Data Commons (PDC) has new data from the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium’s lung squamous cell carcinoma and uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma studies.

NCI is launching the Cancer Moonshot℠ Seminar Series on September 24, 2020. The series will showcase the research progress from different Cancer Moonshot initiatives that support the 10 recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Panel report, including data sharing.

Dr. Juli Klemm, NCI program director and coordinator of NCI’s Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR) program, and Dr. Jeremy Warner, associate professor of medicine and biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University, recently served as guest editors on a special issue of JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics. The issue features articles describing ITCR tools that are helping to advance cancer research and care.

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) is encouraging investigators with diverse expertise in genetics, genomics, and data science to join the Impact of Genomic Variation on Function (IGVF) Consortium. Applications will be supported by funding opportunity announcements (FOAs), and investigators will be asked to develop a framework for systematically understanding the effects of genomic variation on genome function and how these effects shape phenotypes.

NCI Director, Dr. Ned Sharpless, will serve as keynote speaker at the Sixth Computational Approaches for Cancer Workshop (CAFCW20), which will be held virtually on November 13, 2020. The CAFCW20 workshop will bring together clinicians, cancer biologists, mathematicians, data scientists, computational scientists, engineers, developers, and thought leaders interested in advancing computational approaches to better understand cancer. Abstracts may be submitted for this workshop, but they must be submitted no later than Tuesday, September 8.

The latest repository in the NCI Cancer Research Data Commons, the Integrated Canine Data Commons (ICDC), has launched! The ICDC offers cloud-based public access to canine cancer data and with its connection to the NCI Cloud Resources, allows researchers to leverage over 1,000 analytics tools and pipelines for high-powered cloud computing and analysis.

NCI's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Development Center is now accepting proposals for contracts of interest to the data science field. One topic is aimed at developing cloud-based imaging and multi-omic tools and another is seeking de-identification solutions for NCI's Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC). Applications are due by Monday, October 26, 2020, at 5:00 p.m. ET. A pre-recorded webinar from HHS is available, which explains the 2020 contract Funding Opportunity Announcements for SBIR programs and gives some tips for success.

Harmony can mean different things to different professions, but in the new NCI Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC) video, musical harmony and data harmonization combine to show how the CRDC is helping to create a harmonious data ecosystem for better clinical outcomes.