Best Practices Integrative Informatics Consultation Service (BPIC)

BPIC has been established to provide a one-stop consultation service to address the expanding needs for high-level bioinformatics, high dimensionality data mining, database management and health informatics services required by NYULMC research efforts. BPIC is designed further to integrate pre-existing bioinformatics resources of NYU and in the future to establish strong working relationships with NYU academic programs in mathematics, computer science and biology. BPIC serves thus multiple objectives:

BPIC Objectives

(a) Identify and prioritize specific informatics research support needs across the medical center.
(b) Provide researchers with access to selected set of state-of-the-art bioinformatics tools and the resources necessary for data storage and computation to apply these tools to basic science, translational and clinical projects.
(c) Benchmark internally- and externally-developed methods, study and synthesize related literature to develop/disseminate existing best practice guidelines.
(d) Execute analyses or software on behalf of researchers, construct custom data analysis pipelines, or point to external resources capable of so doing.
(e) Provide expert bioinformatics and health informatics consultation and training to researchers for all stages of research from design to execution, to publication.
(f) Provide a dissemination channel and evaluation test bed for novel informatics methods developed by NYU researchers (e.g., in Computational Biology, Mathematics, Biostatistics, and Computer Science).
(g) Identify needs for new methods development and communicate these needs to the method developers closing the loop between methods development conception and deployment.
(h) Compile a bioinformatics reference resource with answers/solutions to common questions and research needs.

Functions (f) and (g) will be supported by the creation of a centralized registry of research needs and novel methods that are developed on campus. The registry will be populated with information elements generated both at the time of consultation with BPIC and off-line. It will enable a highly efficient “matchmaking service” between research needs and methods developers and tools at NYU and will be highly complementary with the Find a Researcher project. The BPIC will also provide an invaluable training ground for students enrolled in the planned NYU Graduate Training Program in Biomedical Informatics.

BPIC Consultation Process

In practice BPIC consulting encompasses three consecutive stages:

Stage 1: Initial consultation
In this phase the informatics consultants and researchers meet with the goals of:

a. Understanding study goals both from biological and technical/informatics perspectives.
b. Determining project feasibility broadly and at NYU specifically.
c. Assessing approximate resources needed for the project.
d. Deciding to proceed to stage 2 or, alternatively, conclude consultation.

Notice: stage 1 so far has been conducted in an investigator-initiated manner. In response to feedback from the research community, starting in December 2009, BPIC stage 1 will be implemented via a walk-in consultation clinic, with 3 weekly sessions that will include both an open door policy and online-enabled appointments. A formal announcement with details will be sent out to the NYULMC research community in mid-November 2009.

Stage 2: Specialized informatics team develops tentative work plan
In this phase a small team of informatics faculty and staff discuss the project in detail and produce:

a. A plan for study execution.
b. The draft budget needed to cover necessary resources.
c. A decision to proceed with the execution of the plan after the plan is reviewed by the client and requested modifications are implemented.

Stage 3: Execution

BPIC Consultation Charges

Stages 1&2 of BPIC consultation are free to researchers (i.e., subsidized by the CTSA grant and the Dean).
BPIC offers a variety of chargeback options for Stage 3 consultations:

• Option  1: Fee-for service (recommended for brief engagements of BPIC faculty and staff).
• Option 2: Inclusion of BPIC faculty and staff in grants (recommended for long-term in-depth engagements of BPIC faculty and staff).
• Option 3: CTSA and subsidized vouchers for brief engagements (allocated according to independent scientific merit review).
• Option 4: CTSA and subsidized free service for long term engagements (prioritized according to independent scientific merit review).

All available options are explained in detail to interested researchers during stage 1 of consultation.

Personnel

All CHIBI faculty are available for consultation within BPIC. In addition, the following faculty have specific roles and responsibilities:

Dr. Aliferis, serves as BPIC Scientific Director and is responsible for the design of its functions, its integration with the CTSI, its overall aims and for quality management.

Dr. Stuart Brown, serves as the Director of Operations of the BPIC responsible for day-to-day functionality and services.

Dr. Yuval Kluger is the Director of the Methods Registry and Lead Liaison with NYU main campus.

Dr. Alexander Statnikov is the Benchmarking Director of BPIC, responsible for conducting large scale evaluations of informatics methods and literature synthesis.

To arrange a consultation with BPIC please contact Heidi Fitterling