In-Person HTAN Data Jamboree
NIH Campus
Bethesda, MD
November 6-8, 2024
Participation Application Now Open: submit your application by September 6, 2024
The NIH’s National Cancer Institute is pleased to announce an in-person Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) Data Jamboree to promote the reuse of HTAN atlas datasets with a focus on spatial omics datasets. HTAN data is available through the HTAN Data Portal and NCI Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC) Cloud Resources.
Additional data resources include a Guide to HTAN Data and other HTAN Notebooks.
To Apply: Please submit your application by September 6 using the Application Form.
The Opportunity and a Call to Action
Spatial omics and single-cell technologies are becoming widely used across biomedical research, including in cancer. These rich and complex datasets provide an untapped resource for reuse to validate previous findings, perform new analyses, and integrate with other datasets. However, the best approaches and tools for reusing these datasets are not well-defined. Do you have an interest in utilizing spatial omics and single-cell approaches in your cancer research? Do you have creative approaches for analyzing or integrating these data? Do you want to help improve the utility and accessibility of spatial omics and single-cell data?
Join colleagues from a wide range of fields and communities to explore new approaches to analyze and integrate single-cell and spatial omics data from the Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN). By participating in this event, you will have the opportunity to learn more about the HTAN data and related resources, help improve the utility of HTAN data, and help build a broader and more diverse HTAN community.
About HTAN
The goal of the Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) is to generate molecularly defined, multi-dimensional spatial atlases of tumors as they progress from precancer to cancer, transition from locally invasive to metastatic disease, and respond or become resistant to therapy. A brief overview of HTAN can be seen here (starting at 02h:11m:56s). The initial set of HTAN atlases provide several new insights into the biology of precancer, metastasis, and therapy resistance and suggest opportunities for translation of several HTAN findings.
Importantly, HTAN also operates as a community resource and extensive efforts have been made across HTAN to provide the data, protocols, and analytical methods underlying the HTAN atlases available to the community. You can explore the available HTAN data across multiple precancer and cancer types, including breast, colon, lung, skin, pancreas, and pediatric leukemia, here.
About the HTAN Data Jamborees
Data Jamborees provide amazing opportunities for scientists and coders of diverse expertise and experience levels to work together creatively to build unique solutions that solve relevant problems in cancer research. The key to our Data Jamboree is the focus on interdisciplinary collaboration, fostering new ideas and insights, and expanding the HTAN community. Over three days, teams of four to eight people work on different scientific problems, emphasizing sharing expertise and insight through shared presentations and live demonstrations throughout the event. The event will wrap up with summary presentations or demonstrations of the work accomplished during the event.
Participants may leverage the NCI CRDC resources. CRDC cloud resources can provide an environment to work with HTAN data or combine HTAN data with publicly available datasets, including those generated by Jamboree participants. Additional data resources include a Guide to HTAN Data and other HTAN Notebooks. The HTAN atlas datasets contain clinical data matched to a range of molecular data types, including a variety of multiplexed spatial data types (i.e., multiplexed immunofluorescence and spatial transcriptomics) and bulk and single-cell omics data.
The HTAN Data Jamborees aim to bring together investigators from within and outside of HTAN who are interested in utilizing HTAN data and associated tools. The Jamboree planning team will organize participants into small teams with diverse expertise and experience. Each team will be focused on addressing a specific question or challenge utilizing available HTAN data. The fall 2024 Jamboree will have a focus on projects utilizing spatial omics data. Teams will work together in person over three full days to develop creative solutions leveraging HTAN data and resources. The goals of the HTAN Data Jamborees include:
HTAN Data Jamboree Projects
Transcription Program Gradients: This project aims to identify and interpret spatial gradients of gene programs in tumor spatial transcriptomic datasets.
Validation of CAF Subtypes: This project will focus on the reproducibility of cancer associated fibroblast (CAF) functional subtype classification described in L. Cords et al, 2023, using spatial transcriptomic data for gene signature analysis and corresponding images for detection of cell morphology and spatial patterns with respect to cell type neighborhoods or anatomical structures.
Deep Learning on Multiplexed Immunofluorescence: This project entails modeling multiplexed immunofluorescence imaging data with self-supervised deep learning to predict patient outcomes, identify cellular niches, and uncover the biology informing the model predictions with feature attribution methods
Analyzing Cancer Spatial Transcriptomic Data with spatiAlytica LLM: This project will extend spatiAlytica to be a cancer-specific multi-agent system by identifying cancer-related questions and developing corresponding Python code, creating cancer-specific analysis actions, generating a benchmark cancer spatial transcriptomic datasets, and evaluating spatiAlytica's capabilities with the benchmark dataset.
Heterogeneity, Ancestry, and Tumor Progression: This project will use a multi-Omics spatial approach to unravel the complexity of tumor heterogeneity and understand disease progression influenced by genetic ancestry and/or Self-Reported Race, as well as drive poor outcomes among underrepresented populations
Pan-cancer Treg Atlas: This project will construct a pan-cancer regulatory T cell (Treg) atlas using scRNA-seq data, and validate Treg subtypes and function using spatial transcriptomic data.
Who Should Apply
Independent investigators, postdocs, and late-stage graduate students interested in utilizing HTAN spatial omics and single-cell data as part of their research. Investigators with cancer biology, cancer clinical research, pathology, imaging biology, systems biology, computational biology, data science, bioinformatics and other relevant fields are all encouraged to apply. Computational expertise is not required to participate. Participants will be organized into teams with diverse expertise by the organizing committee.
How To Apply
Please submit your application by September 6 using the Application Form.
Questions?
For questions about the HTAN Data Jamborees in general or about the application process, please email Sean Hanlon (sean.hanlon@nih.gov)