# Cancer Informatics Shared Resource

> **NIH NIH P30** · UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA · 2020 · $248,736

## Abstract

Cancer Informatics Shared Resource Summary
The Cancer Informatics Shared Resource (CISR), a newly reorganized Shared Resource of the Masonic
Cancer Center (MCC), provides MCC members with state-of-the-art bioinformatics and clinical informatics
services, providing cutting-edge methods, tools, infrastructure, and expert consultations and collaborations to
cancer researchers. During the previous period, the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and
Institute for Health Informatics (IHI), in consultation with the MCC, recruited Dr. Constantin Aliferis to be the
Clinical Research Informatics Officer for the UMN. Under Dr. Aliferis' leadership, health informatics at the UMN
has expanded rapidly, leading to organizational restructuring and faculty recruitments. Dr. Aliferis shared the
vision witn MCC leadership of integrating Bioinformatics with Medical Informatics. Thus, CISR was created by
integrating the MCC's BioInformatics consultation service and the cancer clinical informatics services, formerly
known as Oncology Medical Informatics Services (OMIS), with the Institute for Health Informatics the
Bioinformatics Consultation Services, while maintaining a cancer-focused informatics subgroup in IHI. This
strategic integration will greatly expand the cancer informatics capacity for analyzing large-scale datasets by
leveraging the expanded informatics resources the UMN including several high-impact informatics methods
development labs, a full range of educational activities (including degree programs and specialized courses),
informatics support of high-throughput assays, a secure data environment, and a clinical trial management
system. CISR will build upon the past informatics successes to expand and strengthen cancer bioinformatics
research development, increase the reach of its consulting service, guide the development of clinical genome
informatics, and develop system-wide processes to integrate clinical and genomic data to support translational
and clinical research for personalized oncology.
In 2016, Professor Jinhua Wang, PhD, a noted computational biologist with a research interest in high-
throughput cancer genomics projects, was recruited to Direct CISR. Also new is his direct report, Assistant
Professor Ahmad AbuSalah, PhD, who leads the cancer informatics consultation services. Two key
Bioinformatics staff, Drs. Aaron Sarver and Nuri Alpay Temiz, were promoted to IHI faculty when CISR formed,
and are working closely with Dr. Wang to enhance bioinformatics collaborations and consulting.
CISR provides consultation services and expertise critical to the clinical research mission of the MCC in five
major areas: 1) cancer genomics and clinical data science and analytics; 2) clinical and genomics data sharing,
infrastructure integration, and method development; 3) development of methods for analyzing new genomics
technology; 4) education and training on big-data analytics and precision oncology; and 5) clinical trial data
managemen...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9859357
- **Project number:** 5P30CA077598-22
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
- **Principal Investigator:** Jinhua Wang
- **Activity code:** P30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $248,736
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** — → —

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9859357

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9859357, Cancer Informatics Shared Resource (5P30CA077598-22). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9859357. Licensed CC0.

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