Bioinformatics Facility

Overview of Services

The mission of the Bioinformatics Shared Resource is to support the continuing research and education mission of The Wistar Institute and to grow and evolve in response to emerging research needs.

The Bioinformatics Shared Resource is located in the Center for Systems and Computational Biology, which provides a state-of-the-art server room, office space, and educational and conference room space. The Resource provides Cancer Center investigators with expertise in statistical analyses and computational modeling of biomedical research data, data management and software application support.  The Resource is supported and advised by members of the Center for Systems and Computational Biology.

Functions of the Bioinformatics Shared Resource reflect the research requirements of the three Cancer Center programs and are broadly divided into three areas: (i) statistical analyses and computational modeling; (ii) advanced bioinformatics tools for integrative cancer biology and (iii) data-management.  Facility personnel are highly trained and experienced to support these goals. Typical data analyses include large scale information datasets (omics data), generated by high-throughput technologies addressing the following complex areas:

• Genome and transcriptome sequencing (alternate splicing, RNA editing, mutation detection, CNV )
• Gene regulation (ChIP-seq, ChIP-chip, epigenetic profiling, promoter methylation arrays)
• Biomarkers (e.g. mRNA ,miRNA microarray and protein expression data)
• Proteomic analyses (mass spectrometry-based spectra, LCMS, DIGE, etc.)
• Polymorphism genotyping (e.g. Single Nucleotide [SNP] and Copy Number variations [CGH], LOH)
• Pathway and network analysis
• Integration of multi-platform data
• Other customized data analysis projects

The Resource has placed a high priority on integrating cancer research information representing a variety of data types, including clinical data, next generation sequencing or microarray data, protein expression data, RT-PCR and functional assays. Data security is a primary focus of the Bioinformatics Facility in designing and implementing software systems.

Leadership

Andrew Kossenkov

Scientific Director

215-495-6898

akossenkov@wistar.org

Hours of Operation and Location

Links and Resources

1. Bioinformatics Facility

Contacts