Informatics plays a key role in organizing, processing, analyzing and interpreting the large quantity and variety of data generated by translational research. Informatics scientists within the Division of Preclinical Innovation (DPI) cover a wide array of expertise, including bioinformatics, cheminformatics, software engineering, data science and user interface/user experience. Informatics experts are embedded within the DPI Informatics Core or in other branches and cores of DPI, but all closely collaborate with their colleagues across DPI to produce methodologies, resources and software for the translational research community.
Our Mission
The mission of informatics experts at NCATS is to enable data-driven decisions that accelerate translation by developing new or enhancing the application of existing methods that —
- Prioritize targets and therapeutic opportunities for evaluation.
- Identify biological and chemical mechanisms that underlie disease development, drug mechanisms of action, and treatment response.
- Design novel, fit-for-purpose chemical probes.
- Develop optimal models to use in various translational research prediction tasks (e.g., biomarker/phenotypic predictions, etc.).
- Assess productivity of the translational research process.
- Enhance transparency and open research by adhering to user-centric and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reproducible) best practices for data and software.
Who We Are
Our work is highly collaborative, and we take a team science approach in which everyone contributes meaningfully to translational research projects. We also are excited to house a number of trainees, from Ph.D. students to postdoctoral fellows, who bring in fresh ideas to our work. Learn more about the informatics scientists in DPI.
What We Do
Our main outcomes are —
- apps that capture, organize and connect the many types of data relevant to translational research (high-throughput screening, -omics, chemical/biological annotations, etc.)
- curated apps and apps that support curation efforts
- novel and customized methods and workflows that enable complex integration, analysis and interpretation of translational research data
Learn more about our —
Whom We Work With
Within NCATS
Other Institutes and Centers at NIH
- National Cancer Institute
- National Center for Biotechnology Information
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
- National Human Genome Research Institute
- NIH Common Fund — Illuminating the Druggable Genome
Other Partners and Collaborators
- Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration
- Cures Acceleration Network
- Critical Path Institute
- The Ohio State University
- The University of New Mexico