The Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR) program of the NIH National Cancer Institute awarded CUNY SPH a competitive renewal of $5.2 million in total costs to continue its development of open-source software and databases for cancer genomics. The five-year U24 grant, titled “Cancer Genomics: Integrative and Scalable Solutions in R/Bioconductor,” will support years 11-15 of this project.
Led by Principal Investigator Dr. Levi Waldron and Co-Investigator Dr. Sehyun Oh of CUNY SPH, the project aims to enhance and expand the Bioconductor ecosystem, a cornerstone resource for statistical analysis and data management in cancer genomics research. The grant will fund collaborative efforts with the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Mass General Brigham in Boston, the University of Colorado, and the University of Padova in Italy.
“This renewal represents a significant vote of confidence in our past 10 years of work and our ideas for the next five years,” said Dr. Waldron. “It will allow us to address the evolving challenges in cancer genomics, particularly in the realm of single-cell and spatial molecular profiling technologies.”
The project focuses on four main objectives:Expanding infrastructure for multimodal experiments and spatial transcriptomics; transitioning to a federated, language-agnostic data-sharing system; creating curated and integrated data repositories; and developing comprehensive user training programs, including a cloud-based learning platform.
The project aims to empower researchers with advanced tools and resources for cancer genomics research, potentially accelerating discoveries that could lead to improved cancer diagnostics and treatments.
