In the recent past, most cutting-edge National Institutes of Health-funded biomedical research projects required only moderate biostatistics support. But now, with technological advancements and an increasing diversity of assays that produce massive data, there has been clear growth in the incorporation of bioinformatics into traditionally purely experimental projects. Experimental labs are becoming increasingly dependent on the use of specific software tools and online databases, and collaborations with bioinformaticians.
The computational aspects of research and clinical care are growing rapidly. Within the Mount Sinai Health System, there are already well-established groups, both in basic science research and in clinical departments, that are at the forefront of various areas of computational biology. The Mount Sinai Center for Bioinformatics will aim to help these groups come together so that they can better interact and work jointly and with others. In particular, we will focus on the significant need for analysis, visualization, and mining of data from omics studies such as transcriptomics, epigenomics, proteomics, and metabolomics for drug discovery, and the integration of such omics datasets with genomics and electronic health records data for enabling precision medicine.
Our primary research focus is on developing cutting-edge web-based software tools and databases to facilitate this work. However, our involvement extends well beyond the development of such tools. We are actively working to create platforms that will facilitate better communication across research groups and clinical practitioners, and to educate the next generation of Big Data scientists.
The new technologies that produce massive data in biomedicine open the door for many opportunities to rapidly advance research and drastically improve clinical practice through personalized and precision medicine.
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is at the forefront of basic science and translational research in bioinformatics. In this new era of transitioning into Big Data biomedicine, the Mount Sinai Center for Bioinformatics at is eager to contribute toward realizing these new opportunities by actively addressing new challenges through innovation.
Avi Ma’ayan, PhD
Director, Mount Sinai Center for Bioinformatics
Mount Sinai Endowed Professor in Bioinformatics
Professor, Department of Pharmacological Sciences