Since its inception, the Cancer Informatics Shared Resource (CISR) has promoted high quality, innovativecancer research by providing members of the UWCCC with an informatics intellectual resource, includingadvancements in Bioinformatics, Clinical Informatics, Image Analysis and Computational Biology. Recentdevelopments include progress toward new computational facilities and new CISR faculty from theDepartment of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics. These faculty bring expertise in genetics/genomics,bioinformatics, imaging and visualization techniques. We have also made significant progress in clinicalinformatics. The CISR continues to advance in its essential role to contribute to all UWCCC programs byproviding technical and intellectual resources that address the specific needs of UWCCC researchers in acost-effective manner. The CISR accomplishes this in two ways. (1) It promotes multidisciplinarycollaboration by providing access to a range of skills and expertise in computational science, informatics,clinical informatics. (2) CISR faculty and professional staff fulfill an important leadership role by tracking andanticipating the needs of the UWCCC research community and then developing specialized informaticsfacilities to meet those needs. Those collaborations include both clinical and laboratory investigations.The CISR faculty and staff are members of the Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics and arepart of the Department's training and research missions. CISR faculty participate in a training grant inbioinformatics funded by the National Library of Medicine. Pre- and postdoctoral students contributed thecancer research activities as part of their training by developing new methods and refining existing methods,at no cost to the CISR. In addition, faculty have their own research grants which also develop new methods,often stimulated by their collaborations with UWCCC investigators. This synergy between methodologyresearch and collaboration has been a hallmark of this shared resource. In addition, bioinformatics facultyhave adjunct appointments in the Department of Computer Sciences which also provides access toadditional expertise. Finally, since the CISR faculty and staff are part of the Department of Biostatistics andMedical Informatics, they can also interact with leading biostatisticians.While the CISR has grown substantially over the past five years to nine faculty, two additional new positionsalready have been allocated for recruitment, and further growth beyond that is expected over the next fiveyears.
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