BIOMEDICAL INFORMATICS SHARED RESOURCE: PROJECT SUMMARY The Biomedical Informatics Shared Resource (BISR), directed by Aris Floratos, PhD, provides members of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC) with access to the knowledge and expertise of specialized personnel and a computational infrastructure that supports integrative analyses of genomic, transcriptomic, and large-scale proteomic data. Such analyses are complex but essential for basic and translational cancer research, which increasingly requires the use of multi-dimensional data generated by high throughput technologies. Through the BISR, HICCC members gain cost-effective access to experienced staff with strong cross-disciplinary knowledge in cancer biology, informatics, and statistics. Working closely with HICCC members, they to help answer research questions using state-of-the-art computational and statistical approaches. Services offered include: (1) guiding experimental design to ensure adequately powered downstream analyses; (2) providing the full analysis component of laboratory and translational investigations; (3) assisting in the development of the bioinformatic portions of papers and grant applications; (4) assisting in the submission of genomic data to NIH data repositories; and (5) providing education and training in the use of informatics methods. In addition to using well-established computational pipelines based on community- accepted best practices, the BISR applies novel systems biology methodologies to characterize regulatory processes that mediate cancer establishment, maintenance, and progression as well as response to treatment. These powerful methodologies have been developed by faculty within the Department of Systems Biology and have been used with remarkable success to elucidate regulatory and signaling programs that play key roles in coordinating cell-state transitions across many cancer phenotypes. To support its operations, the BISR maintains a large collection of biomedical informatics tools and databases in addition to utilizing the world-class computational infrastructure of Columbia University’s Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, which includes one of the largest academic computer clusters dedicated to biological research. During the current project period (2014-2019), the BISR was utilized by 46 HICCC members across all HICCC Research Programs and provided key data and insights to support 17 peer-reviewed research grants and 34 HICCC member publications including work in 13 journals with an impact factor >10, of which 10 were in journals with an impact factor >20 (Nature, Cancer Cell, and Cell Stem Cell). As technologies evolve and new methods of analysis emerge, the BISR is committed to continuously updating service offerings to meet the research needs of HICCC members through adoption of new methodologies for data analysis, new analytical approaches, and enhancement of existing analytical methods.