Health informatics is a rapidly growing field and squarely in the Big Data domain. Bioinformatics is a subfield which deals with data at the molecular level. But it has also been instrumental in bio-sciences in leading the field of data-handling. JPL is part of NCI's Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) for Cancer biomarkers. We have a wide collection of biomarkers from studies by collaborators across the US. The researchers have often done fundamental/basic research on their samples and published results and visualizations.

The aim of this SURF is to understand the connectivity of the datasets, reproduce the visualizations and results and using additional advanced techniques produce better or faster visualizations. Technically we aim for web-based visualization of biomedical data and research results. While the student will be free to experiment, various techniques from existing R packages will be suggested. Example datasets include those from the PLCO Ovarian Phase III Validation Study, which analyzes biomarker panels for the early detection of ovarian cancer.

The SURF will be carried out at Caltech and available to both Caltech and non-Caltech students.

More information and how to application details are available.