Epidemiology and Genomics Research
CANCER EPIDEMIOLOGY MATTERS E-NEWS
JANUARY 2017

Follow us on Twitter
January 2017 Features
Announcements
Contact Us
FOAsFunding
 Opportunity Announcements
PAR-15-297 (U01)
Utilizing the PLCO Biospecimens Resource to Bridge Gaps in Cancer Etiology and Early Detection Research
Application Due Dates: February 15, 2017; August 15, 2017; February 15, 2018; August 15, 2018
Expiration Date: August 16, 2018
Note: Preliminary applications are due by February 15, 2017, and full applications are due by April 3, 2017.

PA-17-098 (Admin Supp)
Administrative Supplements for Research on Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Populations
Application Due Date: March 1, 2017
Expiration Date: March 2, 2017

PAR-17-063 (X01)
Discovery of the Genetic Basis of Childhood Cancers and of Structural Birth Defects: Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program
Application Due Date: March 7, 2017
Expiration Date: March 8, 2017

PAR-16-131 (U01)
Emerging Questions in Cancer Systems Biology
Application Due Date: June 23, 2017; November 24, 2017; June 22, 2018; November 23, 2018
Expiration Date: November 24, 2018

PA-17-138 (Admin Supp)
Administrative Supplements to Promote Research Collaborations on Fusion Oncoproteins as Drivers of Childhood Cancer
Application Due Dates: March 28, 2017; November 8, 2017; March 28, 2018
Expiration Date: March 29, 2018

PA-17-142 (R01)*
International Research in Infectious Diseases, including AIDS
Application Due Dates: May 22, 2017; May 22, 2018; May 22, 2019
Expiration Date: August 23, 2019

PA-17-091 (R01)*
PA-17-092 (R21)*
Fertility Status as a Marker for Overall Health
Application Due Dates: Standard dates apply. 
Expiration Date: May 8, 2020

PA-17-109 (R21)
PA-17-110 (R01)
Reducing Overscreening for Breast, Cervical, and Colorectal Cancers among Older Adults
Application Due Date: Standard dates apply.
Expiration Date: January 8, 2020

NIH Center for Inherited Disease Research (CIDR) Program
Application Due Date: March 9, 2017; May 11, 2017; July 13, 2017; September 7, 2017
Note: Additional instructions for NCI grantees are available at
https://epi.grants.cancer.gov/genomic-resources/cidr.html.

* NCI is not participating in these funding opportunities.
PolicyGrants Policy Announcements
NOT-OD-17-030
NIH & AHRQ Update Font Guidelines for Applications to Due Dates On or After January 25, 2017

NOT-OD-17-037
NIH Implementation of the Interim-RPPR while a Renewal Application is Under Consideration

NOT-OD-17-038
Notice of the Publication of the Final Rule on the Federal Policy for the Protections of Human
Subjects (Common Rule)
JobJob Opportunities
Environmental Epidemiology Program Director

Cancer Research Training Award Fellowship in Environmental Epidemiology

Data Analyst (Contractor) for Genomic Data Sharing
Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program (CPFP) Summer Curriculum in Cancer Prevention
Application Deadline: February 15, 2017
EventsUpcoming Webinars & Workshops
Querying and Downloading Data using the GDC Data Portal and the GDC Data Transfer Tool
February 2, 2017

Identifying Opportunities for Symptom Management Research in Response to Blue Ribbon Report
February 3, 2017

SeqSPACE Webinar Series: ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes - Relationships Between Germline and Somatic Mutations
February 6, 2017

Incorporating Weight Management and Physical Activity Throughout the Cancer Care Continuum: A National Cancer Policy Forum Workshop
February 13-14, 2017
Washington, DC

Approaches to Blue Ribbon Panel Recommendations - The Case of Lynch Syndrome
February 22-23, 2017
Rockville, MD

CBIIT Speaker Series: Building NLP Processes for Automated Extraction of Data from Clinical Reports
March 1, 2017

SeqSPACE Webinar Series: Title TBD
March 9, 2017

Workshop on Next Steps in Studying Human Microbiome and Health in Prospective Studies
March 14-15, 2017
Rockville, MD

American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting
April 1-5, 2017
Washington, DC
Note: The AACR Molecular Epidemiology Working Group is accepting applications from molecular epidemiology consortia for meeting space. Applications will be accepted through March 24, 2017. View announcement.

2017 Sandpit Workshop: Knowledge Integration Across Health Domains, Professions, and Nations to Advance Cancer Prevention
April 24-26, 2017
Applications must be emailed to NCI-CRUK-Sandpit2017@mail.nih.gov by February 15, 2017, at 6:00 p.m. ET.

2017 NIH Regional Seminar
May 3-5, 2017
New Orleans, LA

The 4th Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Congress - Genomics and Society: Expanding the ELSI Universe
June 5-7, 2017
Farmington, CT

BD2K Guide to the Fundamentals of Data Science Webinar Series 
Every Friday, 12:00-1:00 p.m. ET 
BlogsBlog Posts
Happy New Year: Looking Back at 2016 Research Highlights
Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D.
NIH Director's Blog

One Year (or so) of "Open Mike"
Michael Lauer, M.D.
Open Mike Blog
AboutAbout EGRP
The Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program (EGRP) in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) funds research in human populations to understand the causes of cancer and related outcomes.

The Program fosters interdisciplinary collaborations, as well as the development and use of resources and technologies to advance cancer research and translation of this research, which serve as the basis for clinical and public health interventions.
ContactContact Us
email: nciepimatters@mail.nih.gov
website: epi.grants.cancer.gov
twitter: twitter.com/NCIEpi
Feature1 

Each year, staff in the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program (EGRP) nominate and vote for manuscripts published by EGRP grantees that are deemed to have the greatest potential scientific and/or public health impact. The following publications were chosen for inclusion in the 2016 Research Highlights:
 
Breast Cancer
Colorectal Cancer
Head and Neck Cancer
Multiple Cancers
  • Amos CI, Dennis J, Wang Z, Byun J, Schumacher FR, Gayther SA, Casey G, Hunter DJ, Sellers TA, Gruber SB, Dunning AM, Michailidou K, Fachal L, Doheny K, Spurdle AB, Li Y, Xiao X, Romm J, Pugh E, Coetzee GA, Hazelett DJ, Bojesen SE, Caga-Anan C, Haiman CA, Kamal A, Luccarini C, Tessier D, Vincent D, Bacot F, Van Den Berg DJ, Nelson S, Demetriades S, Goldgar DE, Couch FJ, Forman JL, Giles GG, Conti DV, Bickeböller H, Risch A, Waldenberger M, Brüske-Hohlfeld I, Hicks BD, Ling H, McGuffog L, Lee A, Kuchenbaecker K, Soucy P, Manz J, Cunningham JM, Butterbach K, Kote-Jarai Z, Kraft P, FitzGerald L, Lindstrom S, Adams M, McKay JD, Phelan CM, Benlloch S, Kelemen LE, Brennan P, Riggan M, O'Mara TA, Shen H, Shi YY, Thompson DJ, Goodman MT, Nielsen SF, Berchuck A, Laboissiere S, Schmit SL, Shelford T, Edlund CK, Taylor JA, Field JK, Park SK, Offit K, Thomassen M, Schmutzler R, Ottini L, Hung RJ, Marchini J, Amin A, Olama A, Peters U, Eeles RA, Seldin MF, Gillanders E, Seminara D, Antoniou AC, Pharoah PD, Chenevix-Trench G, Chanock SJ, Simard J, Easton DF. The OncoArray Consortium: A Network for Understanding the Genetic Architecture of Common CancersCancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2017 Jan;26(1):126-135.
Pediatric Cancer
Skin Cancer
Survivorship
Congratulations to all of our grantees! More details about the current and past Research Highlights publications can be found on the EGRP website.
 
Feature2 
How Can NCI's Genomic Data Commons and Cancer Genomics Cloud Pilots Foster Data Sharing and Advance Cancer Research? 
The advent of large-scale scientific programs that use next-generation sequencing technology has resulted in an enormous growth of biomedical data. The volume of  data makes sharing, access, and analysis difficult in terms of storage, transfer, and computing capability.  NCI has responded to these challenges by developing the Genomic Data Commons (GDC) and Cancer Genomics Cloud (CGC) Pilots to advance a national cancer knowledge system.

The Genomic Data Commons (GDC) Supports Data Sharing

NCI's GDC provides the cancer research community with a unified data repository that enables data sharing across cancer genomic studies. Currently, it supports several cancer genomics projects, including The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments (TARGET). The TCGA and TARGET data are harmonized using a common bioinformatics pipeline which will enable direct comparisons between these datasets. In addition to standardization and harmonization, the GDC provides visualization tools for viewing data. Learn how to access and analyze data with the GDC.

As more researchers submit their data, the GDC will become more powerful for making discoveries. Learn more about submitting your data to the GDC.

Cancer Genomics Cloud Pilots Bring Data and Computation Together to Accelerate Cancer Research 

NCI's Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (CBIIT), in collaboration with the Center for Cancer Genomics, awarded three contracts for the Cancer Genomics Cloud (CGC) Pilots. The Broad Institute, the Institute for Systems Biology, and Seven Bridges Genomics have each developed unique infrastructures with a variety of tools to access, explore, and analyze molecular data. The CGC Pilots allow users to run best practice tools and pipelines already implemented, or upload their own data and/or analysis methods to workspaces. Learn more about the three Pilot platforms

These pilots are designed to explore innovative methods for accessing and computing on large scale cancer genomic data. They bring analytics and data from TCGA together on a single platform through a set of data repositories with co-located computational capacity and an Application Programming Interface (API) that provides secure data access. In this model, applications are brought to the data, rather than bringing the data to the applications. ( See handout.) As an example, data for the ICGC-TCGA DREAM Somatic Mutation Calling Challenge - RNA is currently being hosted on the Institute for Systems Biology and Seven Bridges Genomics clouds.



The Cancer Genomics Cloud Pilots Are Available for Researchers to Use! 

NCI encourages the research community to test the usefulness of the CGC Pilots in their own research. To get started, users need to register and establish an account with each Pilot of interest. TCGA data is available on all three platforms after users agree to the data use restrictions and requirements outlined in the TCGA publication guidelines. Anyone interested in working with controlled access data on any of the cloud platforms will need dbGaP Access. Cloud pilot projects to date have included publicly accessible (e.g., TCGA) or investigator-generated datasets; analysis of germline and/or somatic alterations; and data from whole exome, whole genome, or RNA sequencing platforms. 

To facilitate use and evaluation of the Cancer Genomics Cloud Pilots, NCI is providing credits to researchers to use on the platforms. The credits are available directly through each of the CGC Pilots. Learn more about cloud credits available for researchers.

More Information

NCI will be hosting a webinar on February 2, 2017 for those interested in learning more about querying and downloading data using the GDC Data Portal and the Data Transfer Tool. 

For questions about the GDC, view the support resources or email ( support@nci-gdc.datacommons.io).  
View answers to frequently asked questions
about the CGC Pilot projects. For questions, ideas, and suggestions about the Cancer Genomics Cloud Pilot Program, e-mail ncicloud@nih.gov.



NIH... Turning Discovery Into Health®