SERVICES

The Data Analysis Core facility (DAC) provides the Paris Brain Institute with structural support and expertise in processing, integrating, and analyzing increasingly complex data.

Organized into divisions, the Data Analysis Core facility services both internal and external, clinical and fundamental research teams. It provides scientists, physicians and their collaborators with in-house data analysis, advice (helpdesk) and web-based services for data exploration, including transcriptomics data, brain lesion characterization and outcome prediction from neuroimaging.

Omics analysis

The omics analysis division runs pipelines and provides interfaces to process and visualize Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) data, including genomics (gene panel, whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing), transcriptomics (bulk RNA-seq and single-cell RNA-seq analyses), epigenomics (ATAC-seq chromatin accessibility) and ChIP-seq (protein binding). The division continuously responds and anticipates emerging technologies, such as spatial transcriptomics.

Image analysis

The image analysis division develops and maintains pipelines and interfaces to visualize, process, and analyze a wide range of biomedical imaging data, providing scalable and reproducible workflows. This includes utilizing image processing and advanced deep and machine learning techniques for tasks such as segmentation, feature extraction, and classification. Additionally, the division continuously adapts to emerging technologies like spatial transcriptomics (e.g., 10x Visium and Vizgen MERSCOPE).

Biostatistics

The biostatistics division provides expert support in statistical analysis for any type of biological data. It functions as a responsive helpdesk that provides support in statistical analysis for researchers throughout their research projects. It anticipates and responds to emerging needs of the institute by designing advanced statistical methods to deal with the integrative analysis of high-dimensional and multimodal data, including omics, electrophysiology, cell imaging, neuroimaging and clinical data.

Data Management

The data management division offers operational support to researchers in managing the increasing demands for the findability, access, interoperability and reusability of their data (FAIR) by providing databases and secure web interfaces according to shared data models. The division implements the institute’s vision of maximizing the impact of its research by exploiting the transversal potential of its data warehouse. The division also plays a central role in implementing the institute’s data management policy, through developing data management plans in concert with the legal, data protection and integrity officers, as well as the office of innovation.

Research infrastructure

The activities of the Data Analysis Core facility exploit the high-performance computing equipment managed by the IT department, including an Illumina DRAGEN Bio-IT Platform, database servers, high performance storage, an 800-core cluster, and application servers. Together with researchers, platforms and the institute’s research support services, the Data Analysis Core facility optimizes the institute for high-throughput cloud computing, data storage, processing and sharing, for the purpose of allowing its researchers to answer their most ambitious and impactful research questions, and support state-of-the-art transversal research projects that necessitate a central hub for data analysis and integration.