BIOINFORMATICS SHARED RESOURCE The Bioinformatics SR (BIOIN) is a vital component of the Center?s entire research operation. It houses all databases, date storage, and analytic infrastructure central to Lineberger?s research. Two major functions of the SR are 1) the maintenance of all databases, substantial computational and data storage infrastructure in a secure yet utilitarian computing environment and; 2) a full complement of research services to faculty for ?big data? analysis and the development of new analytic techniques. An example of these services includes the management of the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) used for tissue tracking which promotes the seamless transfer of samples from group to group. The LIMS integrates with other applications such as the Lineberger Data & Biospecimens Repository and Tableau for report generation. LIMS currently supports 10 SR, encompassing 7,628 active protocols, and 2.5M containers. The SR is central to the handling and analysis of tissue-based clinical genomics studies such as UNCsequel and those 9 institutional trials. The facility is a primary partner for faculty in sequencing processes for DNA and RNA and drive new tools for discovery and results in publications such as Perou & Parker, Bioinformatics 2019,and Kim et al. Nat Methods, 2018) Another example is the involvement of BIOIN in every TCGA paper since 2016 (48 in total). BIOIN request a CCSG budget of $264,702 which represents 8% of its operating costs and is requested to support the salary of key personnel for effort in support of cancer research and bioinformatic analysis. This facility was used by nearly 100 members for bioinformatics analysis in fiscal year 2019. The facility is a Lineberger exclusive resource and as such the users were 100% members in 2019. The import of the core and its scientific infrastructure is illustrated by the ~$3.5M annual LCCC investment in its operation.
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