Computational Genomics

The Computational Genomics Group is a dynamic team of computational biologists, with the substantial technical and bioinformatics expertise required to oversee the multiple platforms that acquire, store and analyze large and complex data sets generated by the Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine (IGM). Integration of this team within the IGM is critical to its success, ensuring that members are able to learn new methodologies and develop novel analysis approaches in pace with the technological growth that has become a primary driving force for biological discovery. The Computational Genomics Group works in close collaboration with the Office of Data Sciences to support Nationwide Children's mission as a leader in pediatric health care innovation.

At present, the group is comprised of three highly integrated teams:

• Production Support and Development Team: The Production Team supports the day-to-day computational needs of the clinical laboratory, insuring timely and accurate delivery of patient results. The team provides analytical support for clinical, technical development and research endeavors including validation of new tools and assays. Members work closely with clinical and research staff to troubleshoot production issues and collaborate closely with other computational groups to improve data workflows and pipelines in the clinical production environment. The team also develops and tests new software tools to constantly improve the efficiency and capabilities of IGM laboratories. 
• Bioinformatics Services Team: The Services Team provides essential support for the Genomics Service Lab, by analyzing and delivering data, as well as helping customers to understand their results. Team member responsibilities include analysis and interpretation of results interpretation by analyzing genomic sequencing data and interpreting results, as well as infrastructure and pipeline development to ensure availability of analytical workflows necessary for data analyses. Members also support the informatic needs of IGM’s Technology Development Group on new instrumentation and laboratory procedures, IGM’s growing number of translational research protocols, and internal and external investigators on novel collaborative research projects.
• Research and Development Team: The R&D Team is a group of bioinformatics scientists, responsible for advanced and cohort-level genomic research, machine learning applications, and complex statistical analyses. The team focuses on several areas of research, leveraging IGM’s large and growing genomic datasets, near-unlimited scalability with cloud computing resources, and strong bioinformatics algorithm and model development expertise, helping internal and external collaborators to ask and answer challenging genomic and transcriptomic questions.

The group provides bioinformatics services on a collaborative basis at subsidized hourly rates and serves as an interface between the research investigator and the multiple domains that are required to handle the size and complexity of genomic data. IGM operates on a dedicated cloud-based computational environment through Amazon Web Services (AWS), allowing scalable resources to be provisioned on demand. AWS has granted us extensions to our account limits enabling us to launch up to 1,000 simultaneous instances, enabling us to support the analysis of both large- and small-scale sequencing projects. We are uniquely positioned to adapt and develop new computational tools in a manner that is driven by the demands of our research community as it utilizes new technologies.

The development of analytical pipelines for human genome and transcriptome sequencing analysis, and the identification of disease-causing genetic variants, are key areas of focus for the Computational Genomics Group. The group also evaluates and supports multiple software products for genomics applications that are designed to make data analysis tools accessible to biologists.

Training and education in genomics and bioinformatics are an essential component of our mission. IGM provides internship opportunities in genomics and bioinformatics to undergraduate and graduate students. We also train and mentor our research faculty and junior scientists through one-on-one consultation, as well as software training and relevant workshops.

The focus of the group is customer service, and we work incessantly towards providing cutting edge data in a cost effective and timely manner, while balancing larger collaborations and software development that require extensive intellectual and time commitments. 

IGM Recruitment Packet

The Computational Genomics Group comprises a dynamic team of bioinformatics scientists, computational biologists, data scientists, and software developers with the substantial technical and bioinformatics expertise required to oversee the multiple platforms that acquire, store and analyze large and complex data sets generated by IGM. Leveraging the flexibility of the cloud, the group continues to develop highly optimized solutions to address the substantial processing, networking and big data challenges arising from genomic science. The development of analytical pipelines for human genome and transcriptome sequencing analysis, big data research, and the identification of disease-causing genetic variants, are key areas of focus for the Computational Genomics Group. The group also evaluates and supports multiple software products for genomics applications that are designed to make data analysis tools accessible to biologists. Integration of this group within the IGM is critical to its success, ensuring that team members are able to learn new methodologies and develop novel analysis approaches in pace with the technological growth that has become a primary driving force for biological discovery.