# Cancer Informatics Core

> **NIH NIH P30** · VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $136,324

## Abstract

CANCER INFORMATICS CORE SHARED RESOURCE: PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
The Cancer Informatics Core (CIC) was established to meet the growing needs for informatics support of
biomedical research. The overall objective of the core is to facilitate biomedical and translational research at
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Massey Cancer Center (MCC) by providing methods and tools to
record, integrate, manage, analyze, and visualize various biomedical, behavioral, and clinical data. This
objective is met by providing high-quality informatics services through innovative systems developed to access
and analyze MCC and VCU biomedical data. CIC services include consultation, data integration and honest
broker services, feasibility assessment, and cohort identification. These services rely on the CIC Universal
Data Store (UDS), which consists of linked data from VCU Health’s various clinical-related data systems
including electronic medical records (EMR), scheduling, billing, and claims systems, as well as data from the
VCU Cancer Registry and the Bone Marrow Transplant Registry. The CIC staff use off-the-shelf tools when
possible, as well as innovative custom-built applications to perform their research-related services. Custom-
built systems include analyst toolsets for navigating the data in the Massey Data Analysis System (MDAS) and
the Clinical Trials Eligibility Database (CTED) software suite, which grew out of the commercially unmet need
for a clinical trials patient identification and screening tool. These tools are based on community standards, are
designed for interoperability, extensibility and scalability, and follow the highest standards with respect to
patient security and privacy. CIC’s most frequent users are investigators from MCC’s clinical trial enterprise
requesting feasibility assessments and patient cohort identifications. CIC closely collaborates with the
Biostatistics Shared Resource on study design and data quality monitoring, as well as on bioinformatics
projects. The CIC routinely supports the Tissue and Data Acquisition and Analysis Core (TDAAC) by regularly
providing annotations for the banked biospecimens and by supporting a dynamic inventory dashboard. To
support MCC’s efforts in precision medicine, the CIC closely collaborates with bioinformaticians at the Center
for Clinical and Translational Research and the VCU Clinical Genomics Laboratory. In CY2015, the CIC
expertise was utilized in 130 research projects involving members from all 4 research programs. The
supported projects were led by 36 investigators. The CIC is directed by Tamas S. Gal, PhD, and is supported
by 6 FTEs. The CIC is an MCC-managed resource. Employees are available for consultation by appointment
between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday. Certified users have access to CIC's online resources
24 hours per day, 7 days per week. CIC services add value to the research of MCC members as the services
cannot practically obtained through alternative ven...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9921308
- **Project number:** 5P30CA016059-39
- **Recipient organization:** VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Tamas S Gal
- **Activity code:** P30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $136,324
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** — → —

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9921308

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9921308, Cancer Informatics Core (5P30CA016059-39). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-11 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9921308. Licensed CC0.

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