Overview
The National Cancer Institute (NCI)'s Office of Data Sharing (ODS) is pleased to announce its inaugural data jamboree to promote the sharing, access and reuse of pediatric and adolescents and young adults (AYA) cancer datasets in conjunction with the ODS 3rd Annual Symposium.
This in-person jamboree will take place over 1.5 days:
Day 1 (full day): September 29, NIH Main Campus in Bethesda, Maryland (see Venue).
Day 2 (half day): September 30, NCI Shady Grove Campus, Rockville, Maryland (see Venue).
Following the instructions on the Registration and Project Abstract Submission tabs to participate in this event, during which small teams will work on a specific question or challenge utilizing available childhood cancer datasets.
Project Team Leads and/or their designees of the jamboree event are required to present their results at the ODS 3rd Annual Symposium “Data Jamboree Report-Out Session” on September 30th https://events.cancer.gov/ods/annualdatasharingsymposium.
Note: The data jamboree and the ODS Annual Symposium are distinct events that would require attendees to register separately. For the ODS Annual Symposium registration, click here: https://events.cancer.gov/ods/annualdatasharingsymposium/registration
Purpose:
Childhood cancer is a rare disease with ~15,000 cases diagnosed annually in the United States in individuals younger than 20 years. Despite extensive efforts made over the last two decade by programs such as National Institutes of Health (NIH)'s Gabriela Miller Kids First Programand NCI's Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments (TARGET) and Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI) to generate, collect and share the data, pediatric and AYA cancer datasets remain underutilized. Finding and accessing datasets, building specific pediatric cancer cohorts, and aggregating or linking datasets from various data systems still present tremendous challenges for the wider community. To overcome these barriers and raise awareness of existing childhood cancer data resources to inform better diagnosis and treatment options for children, this data jamboree is to bring together researchers and citizen scientists with diverse expertise and experience to collaborate and explore scientific or other questions using childhood cancer data. The goals of the jamboree include:
- Promoting access and reuse of pediatric cancer data and raising awareness about the availability of these datasets.
- Promoting interdisciplinary collaborations to expand the size, technical, and scientific diversity of the pediatric cancer research community.
- Promoting development of new methods and tools for data analysis.
- Identifying gaps and limitations of existing data and resources including barriers to real time access to the data.
Who Should Apply
Investigators, postdocs, and late-stage graduate students interested in utilizing pediatric and AYA cancer data as part of their research (ongoing or prospective) are highly encouraged to apply. In addition, researchers, citizen scientists, and patient advocates and families with cancer biology, clinical research, epidemiology, computational biology, data science, bioinformatics and other relevant fields or interests are welcome to apply. Computational expertise is not required to participate.
How to Apply
You must register for the in-person data jamboree event. Project Team Leads should also submit project ideas under the “Project Abstract Submissions” tab. Individual participants who would like to join a Project Team without proposing projects are nevertheless required to describe their interest in addressing a specific question, and the types of expertise they provide and seek in a project team. The Project team Leads have the option of submitting a unified project idea with a ready-to-go team. Alternately, Team Leads should register and submit project ideas without a pre-formed team and be paired with other appropriate registrants facilitated by the jamboree planning committee and ODS. The deadline for registration and/or abstract submission is June 23, 2025.
Note: Once projects have been reviewed and selected, there will be a virtual orientation phase in the summer (See "Project Selection, Team Orientation and Pre-work" under the "Resources" tab.).
Benefits and Outputs of Participation:
- Potential networking opportunities, interdisciplinary collaborations and engagement with the childhood cancer community.
- Invitation to present at the ODS annual symposia and other scientific conferences.
- Potential analysis findings and publication.
- Increased visibility and usage of lab-developed tools and resources to a wider community.
- Analysis experience gained from handling many types of datasets.
- Documentation of summaries, feedback, and codes whenever applicable (e.g., in GitHub).
- Real-time feedback on barriers to accessing these datasets, utilizing tools, and suggestion for improvements.
Questions?
For questions about the data Jamborees in general or about the application process, please email Emily Boja from NCI's Office of Data Sharing (emily.boja@nih.gov).