Data Integration and Sharing Core

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT For this U19 Program Project, we will establish a Data Integration and Sharing (DIS) Core to process and analyze the large amount of data that will be generated by its four research projects. This U19 proposes an integrated study to test a new approach for developing therapies for age-related diseases. Rather than focusing on individual diseases, we explore genetic differences between successfully aged, healthy centenarians and control individuals with no family history of extreme longevity. Our long-term goal is to use gene variants found enriched in the centenarian genome as potential targets for developing drugs that prevent, delay onset and progression, and possibly even revert many of the multiple age-related diseases. The overall objective of the DIS core is to provide a computational and statistical platform to the project investigators for analyzing and sharing their data in concert, thereby achieving the aims of the U19 project grant. The central hypothesis of this U19 is that centenarians harbor protective genotypes of rare variants in conserved aging pathways, which can be used to identify novel drug targets as the basis for subsequent development of therapeutics against multiple age-related diseases and to ultimately increase human healthspan. This hypothesis has been formulated based on a large body of data already produced in this U19. The rationale for a dedicated core to that purpose is that a consolidated facility is needed to manage the large amount of data on the whole genome level generated by each of four highly integrated projects of this U19. This DIS Core will be established to achieve three specific aims: 1) To assist projects in processing and analyzing the data that they generate; 2) To integrate project data at the systems level and identify genetic network of pro-longevity drug targets; 3) To develop a web portal to warehouse and share data generated by the projects. The function of the DIS Core is significant, because it will be set up to meet the challenge posed by the high volume of data that need to be generated, examined at multiple levels by a variety of approaches, integrated to develop the models for lifespan control, and shared among project investigators and the scientific community at large.