SPOREs
Gastrointestinal Cancers
Cores
Gastrointestinal Cancers SPORE Cores
Core 1: Administration, Evaluation, and Planning
Director: Charles Fuchs, MD, MPH (DFCI)
The specific aims of the Administrative Core are:
- To foster collaborative research within the SPORE in Gastrointestinal Cancer
- To integrate the activities of the SPORE into Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center
- To encourage investigators throughout the Harvard research community to participate in gastrointestinal cancer research — basic, clinical, translational, and epidemiological
- To monitor current research progress, and to plan for the future
- To provide fiscal oversight for the SPORE
- To leverage the translational research of the SPORE into additional extramural funding, including gifts and charitable donations
Core 2: Tissue and Pathology Resources
Director: Massimo Loda, MD (BWH)
Co-Directors: Mark Redston, MD (BWH) and Jonathan Fletcher, MD (BWH)
The pathologic analysis and molecular characterization of human tissue samples is a critical requirement for the success of the GI Spore, including systematic pathologic evaluation of micrometastatic disease, collection and analysis of human tissue samples for oncogenomics and gene discovery, evaluation of genetically engineered mouse neoplasms with molecular imaging correlates, analysis of cancer signaling pathways, and characterization of tumoral heterogeneity in the emergence of chemoresistance.
The core is highly integrated with each of the Spore's major projects, and has three specific purposes:
- To provide tissue specimens, histology processing services and pathologic analysis of human gastrointestinal neoplasms
- To characterize human gastrointestinal neoplasms using molecular pathology tools
- Evaluate and implement new technologies for cellular imaging and molecular characterization
Core 3: Biostatistics
Director: Dianne Finkelstein, PhD (MGH)
The Biostatistics core facility provides statistical and computational support for the GI cancer SPORE. The Core will support consultation and collaboration on all aspects of study design, database development and quality control, and analysis and interpretation of data. The specific aims of this core facility are to:
- Provide ready access to statistical expertise and computing consultation of the GI cancer SPORE program.
- Provide biostatistical expertise for the planning, conduct, analysis and reporting of laboratory experiments, epidemiology studies and clinical trials.
- Advise and support SPORE investigators and their data collectors (technicians, nurses, data managers, etc.) in the areas of data form design, data collection, record abstraction, computerization, database designing and management, and data quality control.
- Provide a scientific computing facility suitable to meet the statistical analysis of GI cancer SPORE investigators, including technical assistance in moving data between various computers and operating system environments.
Core 4: Genomics and Bioinformatics
Co-Directors: Lynda Chin, MD (DFCI) and John Quackenbush, PhD (DFCI)
Centralization of genomics and bioinformatics will provide the GI SPORE with access to state-of-the-art genomic capabilities and bioinformatics expertise, and leverage existing institutional infrastructure such as Harvard/Partners Center for Genomics and Genetics and the Belfer Cancer Genomics Center.
An important benefit of this centralization comes from improved data storage and sharing, allowing for better integration of ideas and information across the various projects within the SPORE. Moreover, given the pace of discovery in areas of genomics and bioinformatics, it is difficult to predict where the field will stand even one year in advance. This invariant feature of change provides justification for a core with strong technical implementation capability and intellectual leadership throughout the granting period, so that the best technology will be brought to bear on the biological questions of the SPORE.
The core will provide several levels of support to the GI SPORE. First, it will offer bioinformatics consultation, in collaboration with Biostatistics, to assist all projects in the design and preliminary analyses of genomic studies, including copy number and expression profiling as well gene re-sequencing. In this process, the core will serve the central coordinating role in data receipt/storage for genomic assays in all projects, so that integrated analyses can be performed more easily. Second, the core will leverage existing institutional infrastructure for establishing capabilities such as expression profiling and candidate gene re-sequencing. In addition, the Core has a unique capability in high-resolution copy number profiling by array-CGH. Finally, the core will provide custom-designed tools and bioinformatics expertise for mining copy number data with integrated expression analyses.
