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Cancer Research Informatics Shared Resource (CRI SR)

CRI SR Overview

The mission of the Cancer Research Informatics (CRI) Shared Resource (SR) is to develop and sustain biomedical informatics expertise and resources needed to enable and accelerate Markey Cancer Center (MCC) research. In accordance with MCC’s Strategic Plan, CRI efforts are aligned to meet the needs of an aspiring Comprehensive Cancer Center serving Kentucky’s high cancer burden. CRI aims are achieved through exceptional faculty and staff who provide integrated local and statewide cancer data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Kentucky Cancer Registry (KCR), and develop innovative informatics methods and computational resources widely utilized by all Research Programs and multiple SRs. CRI provides data and resources to assist the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program and other partners in cancer prevention and control initiatives throughout the state. 

Specific Aims

  1. Provide the cancer data ecosystem that empowers MCC investigators with integrated datasets from diverse sources ranging from molecular biomarkers to population-based SEER patient data.
  2. Develop artificial intelligence (AI) and high throughput computational methods that elevate MCC Research Program science. 
  3. Provide secure computational resources, biomedical informatics applications and expertise to facilitate interoperability among MCC SRs and Research Programs. 

The CRI SR facilitates collaborative research among members of the cancer center through the optimal application of informatics technologies and methods that maximize the accessibility and usability of data, information, and knowledge. The primary goal of CRI is to provide comprehensive and centralized data acquisition and informatics support that is readily available to cancer center members.

CRI services are broadly categorized into three areas: 

  • Curate, harmonize, integrate and deliver the clinical and moleculardata ecosystem for scientific discovery.
  • Design and develop informatics methods for molecular, clinical and data mining and drug discovery.
  • Develop and deploy secure computational resources and applications.

CRI serves as a key gateway to Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Kentucky Cancer Registry (KCR) data to inform and enable MCC catchment-relevant research.
 

To request services from CRI SR, please complete the Service Request Form.

Directors and Faculty

Eric durbin

Eric B. Durbin, DrPH, MS
CRI SR Director
View research profile »

Isaac Hands

Isaac Hands, MPH
CRI SR Assistant Director
View research profile »

Jong Cheol Jeong

Jong Cheol (JC) Jeong, PhD
Assistant Professor
View research profile »

Sally Ellingson

Sally Ellingson, PhD
Assistant Professor
View research profile »

Duane Scott Grimes

D. Scott Grimes, PhD
Systems Professional III

Alena J. Smith, PhD
Project Manager

 

 

 

​ Staff

Chaney Blue

Chaney Blu
Database Analyst

Justin Levens

Justin Levens
Database Analyst

Lisa Witt

Lisa Witt
Data Management Specialist

Carlee Burton

Carlee Burton
Data Management Specialist

Max Chang

Data Management Specialist

Aaron Sword
Programmer Systems Analyst

Abishek Gurappu
Facilitation Professional I

Prashanth Bachu
Facilitation Professional 

 

Trevino Woods
IS Technical Support Specialist

 

Branson Repass
Programmer Systems 

 

Joshua Garrett
Research Information Security

 

 

Cancer Research Informatics Shared Resource (CRI SR)
2365 Harrodsburg Road, Suite A230
Lexington KY 40504-3381
CRISRF-requests@uky.edu

The CRI SR covers operational costs through salary support for personnel from grants and contracts, CCSG funds, as well as state and institutional support from UK. For projects that require significant staff effort, CRI works with investigators to estimate total costs for grant proposals.

What molecular data is available through CRI?

Molecular data at CRI is currently available from 4 different providers:

Providers

Available Features

Notes for Users

Caris
  • CLIA certified
  • Markey collection
  • Available data: 
    • DNA / RNA
    • FASTQ
    • BAM
    • VCF
    • Reports (PDF, JSON, XML)
  • Services of Medical Science Liaison (MSL): Please contact CRI to access the services 
  • Caris has MCC patient only
  • Standard sequencing reports are limited to a targeted panel of +200 genes for clinical purpose
  • WES is available upon request through MSL
  • Uses the GRCh37/hg19 reference genome
  • Does not distinguish between germline and somatic mutations in clinical reports
  • Data is lined to KCR and accessible through Markey’s cBioPortal 

Foundation Medicine

  • CLIA certified
  • Multi-institutional collection in Kentucky
  • Available data: 
    • DNA / RNA
    • BAM
    • VCF
    • Reports (PDF, JSON, XML)
  • Services of Medical Science Liaison (MSL): Please contact CRI to access the services 
  • Standard sequencing reports are limited to a targeted panel of +300 genes for clinical purpose
  • WES is NOT available 
  • Uses the GRCh37/hg19 reference genome
  • Does not distinguish between germline and somatic mutations in clinical reports
  • Data is lined to KCR and accessible through Markey’s cBioPortal
Tempus
  • CLIA certified
  • Markey collection
  • Available data: 
    • DNA / RNA
    • FASTQ
    • BAM
    • VCF (Germline, Somatic)
    • Reports (PDF, JSON)
  • Services of Medical Science Liaison (MSL):  Please contact CRI to access the services 
  • Tempus has MCC patient only
  • Standard sequencing reports are limited to a targeted panel of +600 genes for clinical purpose
  • Uses the GRCh37/hg19 reference genome
  • Germline and somatic mutations are available

ORIEN

  • Research oriented data
  • Multi-institutional collection across U.S.
  • Available data: 
    • FASTQ
    • BAM/CRAM
    • VCF
    • Germline/Tumor/Somatic
    • MSI
    • scarHRD
  • Services of Aster Insights: Please contact CRI to access the services 
  • Data has been approved for research only
  • Bioinformatician (e.g., BB SR) is needed to analyze the data

 

How do I get access to Molecular Data at CRI?

Molecular data can be accessed in multiple ways depending on the requested study type:

  • MCC cBioPortal provides deidentified molecular and clinical reports. please fill out MCC cBioPortal account request form
  • Foundation Medicine and Caris data provide clinically approved molecular data including BAM/CRAM, XML, JSON, and PDF. Please fill out CRI service request form
  • For ORIEN data, please fill out ORIEN data request form

How do I access UK Healthcare data, SEER cancer registry data, or other CRI hosted data sets? 

CRI can help facilitate access to research data sets, please fill out our service request form depending on the source of the data you are requesting:

What data variables are available? 

Please review the data dictionaries at the websites below, depending on the data source:

What computational and data storage resources are available from CRI?

CRI provides a secure virtual environment, a PII-secured HPC Cluster, and extensive data storage resources. CRI personnel have the capability to create servers within the virtual environment and host them for investigators. CRI’s data storage capacity exceeds 1.3PB. Additionally, CRI operates a PII-secured HPC cluster comprising five compute nodes incorporating multiple GPU nodes.

Please visit the following links for public software and additional information.

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Acknowledge the CRI SR

Investigators are required to acknowledge the Markey Cancer Center Cancer Research Informatics Shared Resource (CRI SR) in any publications, research papers and/or grant applications that result from services or CRI member-provided intellectual input or collaborative support received through the CRI SR. Please use the following statement to acknowledge the CRI SR. 

“This research was supported by the Cancer Research Informatics Shared Resource of the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center (P30CA177558).”

NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center - A Cancer Center Designated by the National Cancer Institute

Markey Cancer Center is designated by the National Cancer Institute as a Comprehensive Cancer Center – a distinction that recognizes our commitment to accelerating precision cancer research and care to patients. We are the first and only NCI-Comprehensive Cancer Center in Kentucky, and one of 57 in the nation.

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