The Halvorsen Center for Computational Oncology (CCO) brings together fields of data science, artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithm development to accelerate cancer research at MSK.  

The center is committed to the singular mission of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK): Ending cancer for life. The center approaches its work through defining new scientific frontiers in cancer research through the computational analysis of vast patient and experimental datasets. 

Promoting excellence in computing-based research, we aim to realize one of MSK’s key pillars: Transforming data into cures for patients. Advances in data science for oncology at MSK have already made critical contributions, including accelerating personalized medicine using multimodal data integration, development of cancer vaccines, understanding of cancer evolution and drug resistance and clinico-genomic properties of metastasis, highlighted by numerous publications in high-impact journals such as Nature, Cell, Cancer Cell, and Nature Genetics. 

Fueled by the generous support of Diane and Andreas Halvorsen, Computational Oncology research capabilities at MSK will expand with the new Center for Computational Oncology. This will foster innovation in computing to conduct patient-centric studies with the goals of improving our understanding of tumor biology and achieving impact in the clinic.  

Areas of scientific focus 

Our Center focuses on advancing foundational and frontier areas of the field of Computational Oncology: 

• Computational and AI-driven analysis of real-world patient data for improved precision medicine 
• Cancer evolution and single cell approaches to study tumor initiation, progression and drug resistance 
• Computational modeling of anti-tumor immunity   

Activities and programs 

To achieve our goals, the Halvorsen Center for Computational Oncology will support four key activities: 

Supporting and recruiting investigators working in the Computational Oncology field  

We will support recruitment of independent investigators in the key areas of computational oncology: artificial intelligence, single cell biology, real world data analysis and others to grow our faculty and academic leadership at MSK.  

Training the next generation of leaders in Computational Oncology 

The CCO will support the training of postdoctoral fellows at the interface of computational and translational research.  We will encourage co-mentorship by computational and clinician scientists to provide the optimal training environment for the next generation of computational oncology investigators. These Halvorsen Computational Oncology fellows will add to the vibrant cohort of trainees mentored by our faculty. 

Building and maintaining foundational datasets for MSK researchers 

Partnering with the Cancer Data Science Initiative and other data-centered programs, we will support the development of research-ready foundational datasets for MSK researchers.  This will support clinical and basic research investigators, helping to place specific datasets into large scale context. A successful example already in place is the MSK IMPACT ® dataset.  We aim to create analogous foundational datasets for single cell and spatial analysis of patient tumors. 

Creating an academic network of computational researchers  

As the diversity and scope of computational researchers grows across MSK, we will support the development of networking to provide computationally focused researchers a connection to interact with the CCO.  This supports a Computational Oncology Seminar series to host external international experts in the field, bi-weekly work in progress sessions given by trainees and a faculty affiliates seminar series to expand the CCO network beyond the Computational Oncology faculty investigators. 

Leadership 

Head of Single Cell Analysis 

• Andrew McPherson

Head of Real-World Data Analysis 

• Francisco Sanchez-Vega

Administrative Director 

• Cynthia Berry