Director’s Note

This issue of caBIG™ Links focuses on a tool and a Patient Advocate within the Integrative Cancer Research (ICR) Workspace.

These two articles are examples of the many ways in which participants in the caBIG™ project are accelerating cancer research discoveries to benefit patients, the ultimate goal of caBIG™.

In "GenePattern: Integrated Genomics", we highlight features of GenePattern, the highly acclaimed genomic analysis tool that was developed at the Broad Institute. Recently, three GenePattern modules, described in the article, have become accessible through caGrid, the underlying caBIG™ infrastructure that makes the sharing of research data possible.

In this month’s people-focused article, we describe the journey of Patty Spears as a cancer survivor and Patient Advocate to the ICR Workspace. We learn about her motivations and experiences as a volunteer representing the perspective of the patient.

We invite you to share these stories with your colleagues, and thank you for your continued support of caBIG™.

Sincerely,   

Kenneth H. Buetow, Ph.D.
NCI Associate Director for Bioinformatics and Information Technologies
National Cancer Institute