Making Use of Cancer Genomic Databases

Abstract

The vast amounts of genomic data now deposited in public repositories represent rich resources for cancer researchers. Large-scale genomics initiatives such as The Cancer Genome Atlas have made available data from multiple molecular profiling platforms (e.g., somatic mutation, RNA and protein expression, and DNA methylation) for the same set of over 10,000 human tumors. There has been much collective effort toward providing user-friendly software tools for biologists lacking computational skills to ask questions of large-scale genomic datasets. At the same time, there remains a clear need for skilled bioinformatics analysts to answer the types of questions that cannot easily be addressed using the public user-friendly software tools. This overview introduces the reader to the many resources available for working with cancer genomic databases. © 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.