Data Integration Shared Resource

What Is It?

Data Integration Shared Resource is a Shared Resource under the meaning of the Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) as we focus our efforts in applying for NCI designation. The request form can be used for requesting data, applications and high performance computing cloud environments, from this Team. Data can be requested in any format - Excel, CSV, PDF etc. and refreshed on a desired frequency. The team is proficient in integrating and extracting data from Epic, Tumor Registry, Oncore, Bio-specimen and other RedCap databases, discover cohorts for clinical trials and/or grants. 

As data custodians for the Cancer Center the team supports the Cancer Data Shelter (CADS), an IRB approved protocol (2018-0577), as a secure data shelter for housing cancer data. The goal of CADS is to engage in research, use state of the art approaches to optimize data collection and integration from source systems, integrate research outcomes with treatment outcomes to inform research. This novel approach will help enhance translational research in our community. Researchers will be able to study the prevention, onset, treatment, progression and health outcomes of human diseases especially for the disease of cancer, through a more precise definition of the genetic, developmental, behavioral and environmental factors.

Other Service Names

DISR

Features

Cancer data is housed at a secure data facility managed by the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure for Education and Research group (ACER). The team is now scaling out the architecture to the Microsoft Azure Cloud for our ever-expanding need for High Performance Computing (HPC) to run gene pipelines for gene data analysis. The Team is supporting of Azure Secure Research Enclave and Azure CycleCloud, purpose-built HPC infrastructure for orchestrating and managing cancer genomic data analysis. We support both NVIDIA GPU and AMD/Intel CPU HPC environment including Esri ArcGIS Enterprise environment among other tools. Some of our mainstay features are

  1. Develop and support innovative technologies for funded research studies that facilitate accurate and secure data acquisition and dissemination.
  2. Leverage population-level datasets, including the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER), Illinois State Cancer Registry (ISCR), to facilitate research that is directly relevant to UIC cancer researchers.
  3. Ensure large and diverse cancer research data sets are available for analysis, integration, and mining.
  4. Ensure the integration and operability of informatics systems comply with evolving data standards.
  5. Identification and linkage of multi-dimensional datasets to support investigation of hypotheses related to cancer biology, treatment, prevention, and survivor ship.
  6. Mapping / data visualization of cancer-related data

Who Is Eligible to Use It?

Any researcher/group can ask for data or data management applications from the team as long as their research is cancer focused.

  • Faculty
  • Staff
  • Students

Where Can I Get It?

Please fill out the Request form using this link Request Data/Application or the button on the right to start a ticket to initiate the process. You can use the request form to ask for other services like data management applications, web development work, setting up a High Performance Computing environment on the Azure cloud, etc.

How Do I Use It?

Data use as received from CADS is governed by your IRB approval but generally it can be used for research, quality and analysis for publications, cohort identification for clinical trials and writing a grant application. Depending on the sensitivity of data the team will provide data in Box (health), RedCap, or simple Excel/CSV files in case of aggregate data.

How Much Does It Cost?

Please fill out the Request form for us to better estimate cost of services. Azure services are charged at Azure discounted rates for academic research. Rates are tiered and our dedicated solutions manager will  work with you to meet your requirements and budget. All consultations, fast data analyses, and data extractions up to 4 hours are done free of charge .

Data Request Fulfillment

Request Fulfillment Time This depends on the complexity of the need. It can be anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks. But considering the team's track record, most data requests are completed within a week.
Availability The team is available 5 days a week from 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. Special request for some weekend work can be accommodated with advance notice.
Notification Channel(s) It is best to communicate via the ticket. This keeps all correspondence in one place and makes it easier to refer to in the future. Failing that, feel free to contact the team member assigned to the ticket directly, always referring the ticket number for traceability. 
Maintenance Window(s) There can be a time when CADS or other servers are under maintenance for any reason - patches and crashes. While most patches and updates are done to minimize downtime and during the weekends, crashes can happen unannounced. However, we do promise a 95% up-time of all our services during normal business hours.
Acknowledgement

Please acknowledge the Core for its contribution to your research. This is a requirement for the Cancer Center Support Grant from the NCI.

To acknowledge DISR support of a Publication/Grant
"We acknowledge the assistance of the University of Illinois Chicago, Cancer Center, Data Integration Shared Resource for their data reporting and dashboard services"