The Quantitative `Omics Core (QOC) is being created to apply and develop innovative statistical and bioinformatics tools to assist investigators in addressing precision medicine needs across a diverse range of human diseases. The emerging field of precision medicine (PM) offers the possibility of improving the health of patients through targeted treatments and therapeutics based on the unique characteristics of the individual. Due to its short history as a field and its very nature, PM studies frequently require custom solutions and novel statistical and bioinformatical methods. For the same reasons, it requires biostatisticians and bioinformaticians with a cross-disciplinary, ?team-science? background, to enable both a comprehensive understanding of the needs of domain experts and the requisite technical expertise to support those needs with the application of state-of-the-art biostatistics/bioinformatics techniques and methods, and when necessary, the development of custom solutions. For many PM projects, generating the data marks only beginning of the challenge, with analysis and interpretation representing a major bottleneck in translating raw data into clinically actionable information. The long-term objective of the QOC is to build and maintain an infrastructure that enables the application of rigorous biostatistics and bioinformatics analyses with a measurable impact on the ability of COBRE investigators to both publish their work and compete for R01-type funding. To achieve this objective and to address the above challenges, the Core will leverage its expertise in study design, data management, data visualization, bioinformatics, and the analysis and interpretation of high-throughput `omic studies, including studies of gene expression (microarray and RNA-seq), pathway analysis, protein-DNA binding (e.g. ChIP-seq), DNA methylation, DNA variation, and integrative multi-omic analysis. The QOC, directed by Devin Koestler, PhD, consists of faculty and staff with a complimentary skill set in the areas of biostatistics, bioinformatics and statistical `omics. The considerable overlap between these three areas allow COBRE investigators to work with a single core for their data collection, management, analytics, bioinformatics, and statistical needs. In addition, the synergy between the areas encompassing quantitative `omics allows the Core to provide a wide- range of quality services to COBRE researchers in a timely fashion. The Core already has an impressive track record in applying and developing innovative analytical strategies for cancer-related studies and will seek to expand these successes into other disease states.
