This information is over 2 years old. Information was current at time of publication.

Pitt Resources for Bioinformatics Data Analysis: The Four ‘C’s

Does your research involve identifying correlations between gene sequences and diseases, predicting protein structures from amino acid sequences, transcriptomics, metabolomics, or any of the many other ‘omics? If so, then you have a lot of data that requires analysis: a process of inspecting, cleaning, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, suggesting conclusions, and supporting decision making.

The “four ‘C’s” is shorthand to describe broad categories of options for analyzing bioinformatics data, including paying someone else to do it (Core labs), working with another researcher (Collaboration), and doing it yourself either by learning to program (Coding) or using out-of-the-box software (Commercially-licensed tools). The University of Pittsburgh provides numerous options in these four categories to help you with your data analysis needs.

Core labs are centralized technology-based facilities that maintain and support sophisticated equipment, training, and computational services for a fee. These links are to Pitt/UPMC cores of particular relevance for bioinformatics data analysis.

Collaborations on potential bioinformatics projects with fellow Pitt researchers may be discovered from these links to relevant Pitt departments/centers.

Coding resources to teach you how to program are increasingly available options at Pitt.

Commercially-licensed tools available through Pitt subscriptions can help with bioinformatics data analysis, without the need for programming experience.

For additional links to research considerations such as computational needs, rigor and reproducibility, Next Generation Sequencing, and more, see the HSLS guide Bioinformatics Data Analysis: Pitt Resources.

~Carrie Iwema