Hacking Cancer

A hackathon using the Cancer Genomics Cloud

Seven Bridges is proud to announce a hackathon in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) initiative.

We're inviting the biomedical community to build portable cancer analysis tools to analyze TCGA using the NCI Cancer Genomics Cloud. Seven Bridges is calling on bioinformaticians, data scientists, biomedical researchers, and clinicians of all stripes to collaborate and collectively advance our understanding of cancer and accelerate therapies. If you have a burning question about cancer that you want answered, if you want to use your analytical skills to solve the toughest problems, if you want to learn how to leverage your own research with public data, if you want to contribute to science or the open source community, you want to attend.

The hackathon will take place over three days, from April 1st to 3rd at 1 Main St, Cambridge, MA, and will include workshops, case studies, and a keynote lecture. Seven Bridges will be providing free Amazon Web Services credits to all attendees as well as meals, snacks, and drinks throughout.

Agenda

Day 1: Welcome

5:30pm Kick-off Networking Event
6:30pm Introduction and Weekend Overview
7:00pm Keynote: Prof. George Church (Prof. of Genetics, Harvard Medical School and Director, Personal Genome Project)
8:00pm Networking

Day 2: Start Building

8:00am Breakfast, Teams Form, Pitches & Begin Projects
10:00am Workshop: Finding and Using TCGA Data with the Cancer Genomics Cloud
11:00am Workshop: Portable Software Development with Docker and Common Workflow Language
12:00pm Lunch Break & Breakout Work Sessions
2:00pm Workshop: Using R to Describe CWL Tools, Generate Markdown/Shiny Reports, Make API calls, and analyze TCGA
4:00pm "Pulse Check" 1: Updates from Each Team/Group

Day 3: Finish Up, Awards, Send-off

8:00am Breakfast & Begin Second Day of Projects
9:00am Workshop: Automating and Extending Cancer Analyses with the CGC API
11:00am "Pulse Check" 2: Updates from Each Team/Group
12:00pm Lunch and Learn: Machine Learning Approaches to Understanding Cancer, a TCGA Case Study
4:00pm Presentations
5:00pm Send-off Event & Travel Awards Ceremony

Directions to the event

The hackathon will be held next to 1 Main Street, Cambridge, MA. From the lobby of 1 Main, walk outside, turn left and round the corner. The hall is directly ahead. Signs will also indicate how to get to the meeting hall.

By the T: Take the Red Line to Kendall Square. Walk Southeast on Main Street (against traffic). 1 Main Street will be on your left.

By car: Parking is available at nearby lots, including the MIT lot on 1 Memorial Drive and at 1 Broadway.