Administrative Core

Administration and Coordination Core Project Summary The administrative and coordination core of the proposed U54 Center for Spatiotemporal Tumor Analytics for Guiding Sequential Targeted Inhibitor : Immunotherapy Combinations (ST-Analytics is designed to promote and support the integrated research efforts of scientists from the ISB, Yale, and UCLA, as well as our Outreach program, our Pilot Projects and Cross-Consortium Projects. The scientific programs of ST-Analytics are designed to resolve how to best harness immunotherapy/targeted therapy sequential combinations for the treatment of solid tumors in the clinic, starting with a focus on metastatic cutaneous melanoma. This requires bringing together a cross-disciplinary mix of clinical, biological, physical, engineering, and computational scientists, as well as state-of-the-art, multiomic profiling tools, syngeneic mouse models, and a rich bio-repository of highly relevant patient tissues. Meeting the ST-Analytics scientific goals requires a responsive administrative structure that (i) promotes and enables effective communication and resource sharing between the ST-Analytics researchers and the broader Cancer Systems Biology Consortium (CSBC), (ii) establishes a highly interactive environment wherein ST-Analytics researchers can be good students and teachers of each other, (iii) promotes achieving the program specific aims in a timely manner, (iv) intervenes as early as possible when scientific and logistic conflicts arise, (v) promotes diversity in our scientific workforce through various mechanisms, including but not limited to seed project funding, outreach programs, and raising awareness of these critical issues during our remote and in-person meetings, and (vi) monitoring the scientific integrity and robustness of scientific designs. The ST-Analytics administrative CORE should facilitate the free flow of data, new ideas, experimental protocols, customized reagents, and biospecimens between the institutions. It should establish working relationships with other funded centers. It should facilitate clinical or commercial translation and educational outreach. It should encourage flexible thinking in anticipation of new opportunities or unexpected roadblocks. Finally, it should facilitate a healthy environment of self-evaluation.