Interactions with Children's Hospital Researchers

The Bioinformatics Core interacts with researchers in a variety of ways to advance their research, including:

Consultation
Collaborative Analysis
Task-oriented Analysis
Grant Preparation
General Bioinformatics Resource Support

Consultation: We provide preliminary consultation to discuss bioinformatics solutions to researchers' questions, including general needs and study design assessment, analysis plan development, database and software tool evaluation, and preliminary data analysis.

Collaborative Analysis: We seek opportunities to provide researchers with long-term analysis and bioinformatics support. We strive to become invested in your research outcomes by participating actively in the full research process. Our analyses comprise much more than a simple "plug-and-chug" delivery of results; in fact, our services can, at the researcher's discretion, include the analyst's attendance at lab meetings, strategic discussions of the project, and discussions of derivative project concepts.

Benefits of the collaborative approach for Children's Hospital researchers:

• A member of the research team is invested in your outcomes
• Analysis activities are not tied to single set of tasks (i.e., extendible)
• Result interpretation is geared toward both short- and long-term research goals

Benefits of the collaborative approach for the Bioinformatics Core:

• Renewable and long-term grant support for our members
• High job satisfaction via intimate involvement in a wide variety of research projects from beginning to end
• BiC members align themselves with cutting-edge research activities to ensure future success

Task-oriented Analysis: Although collaborative analysis is preferred, we understand that some bioinformatics analyses lend themselves better to a more moderately scoped analysis plan with clear, limited hypotheses. We support this type of analysis and provide high quality results and interpretation in the hopes of developing more collaborative relationships in the future.

Grant Preparation: We can help with proposal preparation for grants in need of bioinformatics support, including writing the sections on data analysis and distribution required by many funding programs. Letters of support regarding Stokes Institute's sufficiency of bioinformatics expertise and resources necessary to successfully complete the proposed research may also be provided. BiC may also provide the computational resources and bioinformatics support for these grants.

General Bioinformatics Resource Support: We install and maintain a variety of commercially available, open-source, and internally developed software products for the bench scientist. We also offer access to our high-performance computing hardware for our most tech-savvy customers. Click here to learn more.

Funding Status: The BiC is primarily funded through two sources:

• The Center for Biomedical Informatics (CBMi), which is in turn funded by Stokes institutional development funds
• The Stokes research community

We strive to maximize the level of funding of our researcher base. This allows us to gauge our success in terms of sanctioned public initiatives and ensures our continuous delivery of relevant services to our community. It also eases the financial burden on Stokes and allows the institutional development funds to be utilized in other developing areas.

At some point during our engagement with researchers, there will likely be a funding discussion. Please understand this is a necessary conversation and we are looking out for the best interests of the entire Stokes research community by pursuing funding.

BiC will continue to expand our list of services as researcher needs and our resources grow. If you think we might be able to help your research in any way, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are always happy to discuss the possibility of applying bioinformatics services to your research endeavor.