Abstract 1901: VisComm: A cloud-based platform for accessing and creating scientific visualization for the pediatric cancer research community
Authors: Finkelstein David B. , Madson James , Vacaroiu Lucian , Gout Alexander M. , Hirja Leonard , Sandor Stephanie , Thrasher Andrew , Reilly Colleen , Wang Jian , Chen Xiaolong , Zhou Xin , Zhang Jinghui , McLeod Clay 
Published: June 2022

Scientific visualization is important to cancer research as different graphs enable researchers to spot trends and detect outliers in large-scale, high-dimensional data. For example, mutation landscape maps integrate mutational and clinical data, revealing which somatic alterations are most closely associated with diagnoses, age, ethnicity, and outcome; t-SNE plots allow dissection of cancer subtypes based on gene expression or methylation profiling. These graphs are often created by researchers after extensive data curation and optimization of the layout using software tools designed for data visualization and are commonly presented as static figures in published literature. To permit seamless access to the genomic and epigenomic visualization tools created at St. Jude, we developed Visualization Community (https://viz.stjude.cloud/, VisComm), which allows researchers to explore published graphs, develop custom visualization for their private data, and also serve as a public repository for completed graphs, as part of the St. Jude Cloud data sharing ecosystem. Sixty-five (65) interactive graphs from 31 publications in 231 pediatric subtypes are currently available, including t-SNE plots of RNA-seq and methylation data, mutation landscape maps, variant visualization on protein or genomic axes, epigenome states, and chromatin contact interactions. The graphs are searchable by cancer diagnosis, molecular profiling, research interest, publication, and research organization with features designed to enable user customization. To date, 5,014 users, 25% of whom are recurrent, have accessed VisComm. On average, each public visualization has over 4,000 views while the most accessed graph has &gt;13,000 views. We have developed the ability to work in teams with in VisComm to empower collaborative development of new visualizations and controlled release by a research team. This feature enables the professional quality visualizations serve as resources for focused scientific communities such as the Audacious Goals Initiative (AGI) - Retina), a multi-institutional cross-disciplinary research team whose goal is restoring vision to patients by regenerating retinas. Videos and textual tutorials are being prepared using data generated from programs such as the Genome for Kids (G4K), a clinical genomic profiling program, that will help guide users to apply the underlying visualization software tools and to integrate public and private data of all types. VisComm is the first platform dedicated to enabling the development and sharing of interactive high-quality data-rich visualizations, which we expect will enhance data exploration and hypothesis generation for cancer research.

Citation Format: David B. Finkelstein, James Madson, Lucian Vacaroiu, Alexander M. Gout, Leonard Hirja, Stephanie Sandor, Andrew Thrasher, Colleen Reilly, Jian Wang, Xiaolong Chen, Xin Zhou, Jinghui Zhang, Clay McLeod. VisComm: A cloud-based platform for accessing and creating scientific visualization for the pediatric cancer research community [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 1901.