The Biostatistics and Computational Genomics Core will provide support in statistical and computational analysis of sequencing data, biomarker development and validation, pre-clinical study design and analysis to meet the needs of the SPORE Research Projects and interact with other Cores and institutional resources to achieve the scientific and translational purposes of the SPORE. The Research Projects in this SPORE require a broad range of statistical and bioinformatics expertise, including tools for the analysis and visualization of whole genome sequencing and single cell sequencing data. The Core will provide a team of dedicated personnel with extensive experience and strong track record of developing innovative statistical and computational methods. We will maintain and expand current tools and pipelines to assist the design and analysis of the SPORE research projects, and provide centralized support for data collection, processing, quality assessment, and normalization procedures to facilitate data integration and downstream analysis and visualization. Importantly, the core will devote significant effort in developing innovative computational tools that aim to detect, quantify, and track genomic signatures of specific DNA repair defects and/or genetic instability at the tumor bulk and single cell levels. In addition, the Core will synergize with the current infrastructure available at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to provide the SPORE investigators not only with the state-of-the-art computational biology methods, but also with novel computational tools to address specific analytical challenges germane to the success of the SPORE Research Projects.
The overall goal of the Biostatistics and Computational Genomics Core is to ensure streamlined and customized services, support, and innovation in data processing, analysis, storage, and visualization; the design of laboratory experiments and validation; the design and analysis of prospective cohort studies and clinical trials, and to assist the SPORE investigators in the achievement of their scientific and translational goals of the research projects.
