The ability of cytometry to measure 10 or more parameters on individual cells makes it a perfect tool for analyzing complex mixtures of cells such as peripheral blood or tumor sample from patients with various diseases. New assays have enabled researchers to measure signaling pathways inside individual cells, providing insight into the pathology of cancers and immunological disorders. Cytobank is a web-based platform for the management, sharing, and analysis of cytometry data, providing end users with the ability to apply novel analyses visualizations directly from raw flow and mass cytometry data. Currently multiple sites are using Cytobank to work with their cytometry data but are lacking tools to integrate their cytometry data with information in other secure data stores such as genetic testing, minimal residual disease scoring, clinical phenotyping, and patient outcomes. In addition clinical studies increasingly involve multiple sites and institutions requiring a platform that allows users to integrate and collaborate with this data across multiple geographies and disciplines. This is a critical need in early stage immunotherapy trials and in the rising number o industry and academic collaborative trials. In this grant, we will address this critical gap in the translational research pipeline by integrating between data types and across cytometry experiments in multi-center studies. This will allow clinical researchers with moving cutting edge single-cell assays into the clinic as they will be able to securely share data with approved individuals who can assist in data analysis and statistical interpretation.
The aims of the grant are to 1) connect cytobank to other secure data stores, 2) allow for the monitoring of patient studies over time and 3) create novel views integrating additional data types with cytometry. The ultimate goal of this grant is to enhance global health by streamlining the multi-center study workflow and accelerate therapies to the clinic.
Single cell technologies such as cytometry are used in clinical research and for diagnosis and monitoring of patients with diseases ranging from cancer to autoimmunity. In this grant, we propose to enhance a previously built web-based software analysis suite, called Cytobank, to integrate cytometry data with other molecular information for multi-center studies. This will enable important new tools developed in the research laboratory to be translated into clinical settings and enhance patient treatment with cutting edge single cell assays.
