Biostatistics and Informatics Shared Resource

About Us

The Biostatistics and Informatics Shared Resource Core provides data hosting and bioinformatics support for applications of massively parallel sequencing, including: transcriptomics, cistromics, epigenomics and metagenomics. The services are provided through Genboree.

Data hosted on Genboree is available for analysis using bioinformatic tools that reside in the Genboree Workbench. These tools include custom tools developed at BISR and widely used tools from the public domain. Additional tools and data from the public domain or private sources may be integrated as part of our service. Data residing in Genboree may also be exported to other tools for analysis.

The BISR Core hosts periodic workshops at BCM that provide training on the tools within the Genboree Workbench. Online use cases and tutorials are also accessible within the Genboree Commons Forum which guides new users through the Genboree Workbench tools. In addition to workshops and online materials we can also offer in-person and webinar-based training.

Please contact us to discuss your specific training and analysis needs. We routinely provide letters of support for grant applications requiring sustained commitment of BISR Core resources and/or custom software development, and tool integration.

Terms and Conditions for use of Core

View and download the form.

Information for Acknowledgement of Cores in Publications

Core name: Bioinformatics Research Laboratory Core
Personnel: Aleksandar Milosavljevic, Ph.D., Core Director, Matt Roth, Ph.D., and Kevin Riehle, M.S., Research staff

Bioinformatics Resources

The BRL Core utilizes Genboree for managing scientific projects and performing bioinformatic analysis. Genboree has been engineered to allow seamless integration of new analytical tools and to accept a variety of data types so that they can be collected, stored, shared, visualized, and analyzed.

Genboree users have access to multiple utilities to create, share, copy, move, rename, and delete files, all through an easy to use graphical user interface. The BRL Core also utilizes the Genboree Commons Forum for project communication, documentation, and discussion.

The BRL Core Genboree installation is supported by dedicated web servers and database machines. A compute cluster for long-running and compute- or I/O-intensive jobs has regular compute servers each with 24-48GB RAM and 800GB of local storage. The BRL Core can provide long-term archiving of your data on 10 TB detachable disc arrays.

Bioinformatics Tools in the Genboree Workbench

Genboree users are able to upload and store data, access bioinformatics tools, and perform analyses using the Genboree Workbench. The Workbench contains many project management, data management, and data analysis tools. Please register at www.genboree.org and browse the Workbench to see the complete set of tools, including those in beta release.

Bioinformatics Tools in the Genboree Workbench

Genboree Hosting (up to 50 GB data - free)

We will host up to 50 GB of data for Baylor College of Medicine faculty at no charge. Due to the fluctuating amounts and kinds of data being hosted at Genboree, and the length of time that data can be stored, we request that you contact us to discuss your specific data hosting needs.

Genboree Hosting (>50GB data)

Data hosting >50GB is billed annually. The hosting fee covers the fractional costs required for Genboree Workbench hardware and software infrastructure, maintenance, updates, data storage, and a fixed percent of a bioinformatic analyst's time.

If you are interested in discussing "pay per use" pricing that does not include analyst time but is based on the amount of data stored and time on the Genboree computational cluster, please contact us.

Consulting Services

The level and type of bioinformatic consulting varies widely across projects.

Projects may include integration of data and software tools from the public domain to meet project-specific needs. Once integration is complete, the data and tools become available for self-service through the Genboree Workbench. Standard consulting arrangements include a fixed percentage of a bioinformatic analyst’s time, and are billed annually.

We will be happy to discuss the pricing of your specific project needs (i.e. hosting, consulting, or hosting + consulting), after reviewing the Investigator/Project file (please see the Request Services webpage).