The cBioPortal for cancer genomics and its application in precision oncology

Abstract

Abstract The cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics provides intuitive visualization and analysis of complex cancer genomics data. The public site (http://cbioportal.org/) is accessed by more than 1,500 researchers per day, and there are now dozens of local instances of the software that host private data sets at cancer centers around the globe. We have recently released the software under an open source license, making it free to use and modify by anybody. The software and detailed documentation are available at https://github.com/cBioPortal/cbioportal. We are now establishing a multi-institutional software development network, which will coordinate and drive the future development of the software and associated data pipelines. This group will focus on four main areas: 1. New analysis and visualization features, including: a. Improved support for cross-cancer queries and cohort comparisons. b. Enhanced clinical decision support for precision oncology, including an improved patient view with knowledge base integration, patient timelines and improved tools for visualizing tumor evolution. 2. New data pipelines, including support for new genomic data types and streamlined pipelines for TCGA and the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC). 3. Software architecture and performance improvements. 4. Community engagement: Documentation, user support, and training. This coordinated effort will help to further establish the cBioPortal as the software of choice in cancer genomics research, both in academia and the pharmaceutical industry. Furthermore, as the sequencing of tumor samples has entered clinical practice, we are expanding the features of the software so that it can be used for precision medicine at cancer centers. In particular, clean, web-accessible, interactive clinical reports integrating multiple sources of genome variation and clinical annotation over time has potential to improve clinical action beyond current text-based molecular reports. By making complex genomic data easily interpretable and linking it to information about drugs and clinical trials, the cBioPortal software has the potential to facilitate the use of genomic data in clinical decision making. Citation Format: Jianjiong Gao, James Lindsay, Stuart Watt, Istemi Bahceci, Pieter Lukasse, Adam Abeshouse, Hsiao-Wei Chen, Ino de Bruijn, Benjamin Gross, Dong Li, Ritika Kundra, Zachary Heins, Jorge Reis-Filho, Onur Sumer, Yichao Sun, Jiaojiao Wang, Qingguo Wang, Hongxin Zhang, Priti Kumari, M. Furkan Sahin, Sander de Ridder, Fedde Schaeffer, Kees van Bochove, Ugur Dogrusoz, Trevor Pugh, Chris Sander, Ethan Cerami, Nikolaus Schultz. The cBioPortal for cancer genomics and its application in precision oncology. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 5277.