- Genomics High-Throughput Facility (GHTF) A revolution has occurred in biomedicine in which genomics information is enabling faster and more accurate diagnoses and precise tailoring of therapeutics to patients. This revolution was triggered by developments in space age miniaturization of devices to enable high throughput, chemistries and spectroscopic advances for labeling, and use of computer technologies to advance chip-based products and parallel data processing and communications to enable personalized computing. This revolution is technology-driven. The first mission of the Genomics High Throughput Facility (GHTF) as a shared resource of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Research Center (CFCCC) is to act as a conduit to introduce emerging genomics technologies so that they can be effectively accessed by the broadest spectrum of researchers. Investment in this shared resource by the CFCCC has been leveraged by nationally-funded instrument grants and campus cost-sharing. These investments have made Affymetrix microarrays, Illumina HiSeq next generation sequencing and PacBio third generation sequencing available to cancer researchers within one or two years of introduction to the workspace--long before they were commercially available for experimentally-tailored formats. These technologies enabled state-of-the-art research which has translated in a very short time into identification of unexpected roles for transcription factors, alternative splicing and polyadenylation by Cancer Center researchers. Introduction of the technologies at the campus level has the additional value of stimulating collaborations and feedback into further interdisciplinary development of these technologies. The second mission of the GHTF is to train a new generation of researchers in the analysis of genomics data. In the current funding period, DNA sequencing analysis pipelines for HiSeq and PacBio sequencing were established. A Bioinformatics Consulting Service was implemented to insure impact of these data on cancer research. Key future development priorities for CFCC researchers by the GHTF are: 1) development of a single-cell analysis platform and 2) expansion of bioinformatics training and analysis. Tumor populations are heterogeneous collections of cells and that to study them effectively requires the ability to discriminate among them. GHTF will introduce a microfluidic system for preparation of sequencing libraries from individual cells. The ability to analyze large streams of data is arguably now the limiting technology for application of genomics to cancer research. We made substantial progress in this area in the current funding period and now will expand these efforts with longer and more specialized workshops tailored to beginning and advanced applications, additional staff time for bioinformatics, and access to cancer-related pathway databases.
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