To accelerate progress in understanding and treating human type 1 diabetes (T1D), relevant biological data must be organized, exchanged, and analyzed efficiently. Achieving this goal in measurable ways continues to be a challenging and high priority need. The era of biomedical big data presents a remarkable opportunity for innovation and translational advances in T1D research, but the expansive volume, variety, and velocity of experimental information being generated in pursuit of exploration and discovery is daunting. City of Hope (COH) is applying to become the Bioinformatics Center (BC) to provide the informatics consultation, infrastructure, computing, and dataset management capabilities for the Human Islet Research Network (HIRN). This proposal leverages significant coordinating center investments made by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) to support HIRN for the next five years and beyond. The overall objective of the proposed BC is to advance T1D knowledge generated through HIRN by providing the bioinformatics capability and infrastructure for the network.
The specific aims of the project include 1) creation of a bioinformatics consultation unit; promotion of HIRN resource usage through outreach and educational activities, 2) establishment of a web portal to centralize all HIRN-BC resources; institution of a scalable, customizable platform; establishment and maintenance of a centralized computational infrastructure, 3) defining characteristics of HIRN data for deposition and sharing; construction of a HIRN data warehouse; facilitation of dataset acquisition, movement, and tracking; preservation of historically relevant resources, and 4) customization and implementation of resource sharing tools; facilitation of interconnectivity between relevant T1D initiatives; development of interactive training and workshops. If successful, the consultation, infrastructure, archival, and sharing aims described in this proposal will facilitate the ultimate goal of understanding the causes of T1D and developing therapies capable of curing the disorder.
Currently, there is no way to prevent or cure Type 1 Diabetes (T1D). While the availability of biomedical 'big data' presents a remarkable opportunity for innovation and translational advances in T1D research, the deluge of information has created significant challenges in the scientific community. The establishment of a centralized bioinformatics center to address these barriers facilitates the ultimate goal of understanding the causes of T1D and developing therapies capable of curing the disorder.
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| Seay, Howard R; Yusko, Erik; Rothweiler, Stephanie J et al. (2016) Tissue distribution and clonal diversity of the T and B cell repertoire in type 1 diabetes. JCI Insight 1:e88242 |
