Research Cores

The Administrative Core will serve as the central coordination point for all YHN-SPORE investigators, with responsibility for strategic and scientific direction, and monitoring progress of all projects and cores towards the translational goals of the SPORE.

The Core Director (Barbara Burtness) and Co-Directors (Anna Arnal Estape, Erica Golemis, Wendell Yarborough) will have responsibility for leading the SPORE, setting translational research priorities, identifying new translational research opportunities, monitoring the progress of all projects, cores and developmental projects and determining changes in direction of projects, cores and translational research as needed.

Interactions among YHN-SPORE investigators will be facilitated by Core A to accelerate the translation of laboratory findings to the bedside through rational and rigorous translational and clinical studies.

The Biospecimen Core B is designed to support all aspects of this SPORE grant that need to use or analyze biospecimens. We have 4 specific aims that are designed to span the needs of the projects and include potential future work, including the DRPs and CDPs.

Our aims include:

• Aim 1: To collect, store and distribute human biospecimens with complete clinical, pathological, and demographic annotation.
• Aim 2: To conduct or assist in the collection, maintenance and distribution of HNSCC cell lines.
• Aim 3: To conduct or assist in preparation for genomic analyses of biospecimens.
• And, Aim 4: To conduct or assist in the in situ molecular pathology analyses of biospecimens.

In the body of the proposal we expand on our capacities and preliminary data for each aim. We also illustrate how the core will meet the needs of the relevant specific aims of each project.

Overall, we look forward to being a key tissue provider and analysis facility to allow the SPORE project to seamlessly generate data from the Yale and Fox Chase Cancer Center tissue resources.

The goal of the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core (Core C) is to address the statistical design and analysis needs of the Yale SPORE in Head and Neck Cancer (YHN-SPORE) Projects, the Cores, the Developmental Research Program (DRP), and the Career Development Program (CDP).

To accomplish this goal we have assembled a highly interactive team of cancer biostatisticians and bioinformaticians who will work collaboratively with basic, clinical, translational, and population science researchers to advance the frontiers of cancer medicine.

The specific aims of the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Core are:

• Aim 1: Provide collaboration and consulting in the design, execution, monitoring and analysis of basic, translational, population, and clinical studies for YHN-SPORE.
• Aim2: Oversee and coordinate the collection, management, and analysis of data.
• Aim 3: Ensure that data collected on all YHN-SPORE studies are of high quality, are evaluated with bioinformatic and statistical rigor, are accessible within SPORE-affiliated collaborative groups, ultimately enabling the widest accessibility that is appropriate given publication and privacy concerns.