Supporting the fight
against cancer

From developing new computational
methods to applying them at scale, cancer
genomics experts are using Terra to access
data, share tools, and accelerate research

Cancer Hero

The Van Allen Lab is using Terra to advance
clinical oncology through cancer genomics

“Terra makes it easy to onboard new computational scientists, helping them hit the ground running on their research projects.”

Brendan Reardon, Computational Scientist

Can large-scale genomics guide individualized patient care in oncology? To answer that question, members of the Van Allen Lab regularly process genomic sequencing and transcriptional data from thousands of cancer samples. Terra provides built-in data modeling and workflow management capabilities that empower the lab’s researchers to run large-scale analyses efficiently and securely.
Cancer Study

Representative Study

Clinical interpretation of integrative molecular profiles to guide precision cancer medicine

Brendan Reardon and colleagues in the Van Allen Lab developed the Molecular Oncology Almanac (MOAlmanac), a clinical interpretation algorithm paired with a novel underlying knowledge base to enable integrative interpretation of genomic and transcriptional cancer data for point-of-care treatment decision-making and translational hypothesis generation. The manuscript describes the MOAlmanac method and shows how, when applied to a prospective precision oncology trial cohort, this method nominated a median of two therapies per patient and identified therapeutic strategies administered in 46% of patient profiles.

The Van Allen Lab team operates a website that enables researchers to browse the MOAlmanac knowledge base, as well as a portal built on top of Terra that provides a simplified interface for running the MOAlmanac analysis workflow.

Van Allen Lab scaled

Van Allen Lab, Dana Farber Cancer Institute

The Van Allen Lab’s mission is to drive precision cancer medicine through clinical computational oncology. This research group emphasizes translational science with immediate potential clinical application. Their focus is on computational cancer genomics, the application of massively parallel sequencing to precision cancer medicine, and resistance to cancer therapeutics.
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Explore data and tools shared by the Van Allen Lab in Terra

Data@2x

Dataset

Example data for one participant including variant call statistics and annotations illustrating the method requirements

Interactive Analysis@2x

Analysis Tools

Reproducible workflow for running the MOAlmanac clinical interpretation algorithm, as presented in the manuscript

Workspace@2x

Visit the Workspace

This public workspace includes the MOAlmanac workflow preconfigured to run on the example data with the analysis parameters used in the study, so anyone can clone the workspace and reproduce the analysis on their own data.

Browse other examples of studies and tools for cancer genomics research available in Terra

Workspaces

help-gatk/Introduction-to-TCGA-Dataset
Resources for accessing and analysing controlled-access TCGA datasets

help-gatk/Introduction-to-Target-Dataset
Resources for accessing and analysing controlled-access TARGET datasets

help-gatk/Somatic-SNVs-Indels-GATK4
GATK Best Practices for Somatic SNVs and Indels using Mutect2

help-gatk/Somatic-CNVs-GATK4
GATK Best Practices for Somatic Copy Number Variation

help-gatk/InferCNV_SCP_scRNA-seq
Explore tumor single cell RNA-seq data to visualize evidence for copy number variations

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