University of Chicago to launch Genomic Data Commons

The University of Chicago is partnering with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to establish a comprehensive computational facility to store and harmonize cancer genomic data generated through NCI-funded research programs.

The NCI Genomic Data Commons will expand access to data for scientists, speeding up research and ultimately advancing discoveries. The project will provide an interactive system for researchers while supplying resources to facilitate the identification of subtypes of cancer, as well as potential therapeutic targets, according to the university.

NCI has funded a number of large research projects that have collected genomic data on tumor types from more than 10,000 patients—but data for these studies are scattered across different locations and are in different formats, making it challenging for researchers to perform analyses. The project aims to help researchers overcome these types of obstacles by harmonizing and centralizing existing NCI datasets through an approach to data storage and analysis similar to what it used by companies such as Google and Facebook.

“The Genomic Data Commons has the potential to transform the study of cancer at all scales,” said Robert Grossman, director of the GDC project and professor of medicine at UChicago, in a statement. “It supplies the data so that any researcher can test their ideas, from comprehensive ‘big data’ studies to genetic comparisons of individual tumors to identify the best potential therapies for a single patient.”