Introducing UWISDOM

Hello world!

We’d like to introduce ourselves. We are UWISDOM: University of Washington Informatics, Systems immunology, and Data Omics in Medicine. We’re a bioinformatics core that offers analysis, training, and resources to the greater UW community.

UWISDOM is just getting started. In truth, it all began in 2019 when I was hired at UW as a bioinformatician working 50:50 with two labs in Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Over the next 3 years, we grew to 5 bioinformaticians working across three labs, and we’re still growing! Word got around, especially given my passion for teaching and general love for spreading all things #rstats. Soon, other investigators sought us out to collaborate on ‘omics projects, help train graduate students, give advice on grants, and more. Clearly, there was an unmet bioinformatic need in UW research.

This worked for a time since these groups had limited bioinformatic projects, and their research aligned well with our “home labs”. However, as it spread farther, we heard from groups outside the division, and projects became more diverse. Some did not make sense as collaborations with our home labs. You see to us bioinformaticians, data are data, and a counts table looks basically the same whether it comes from infectious disease or cancer or microbiome or elsewhere. Thus, a bioinformatics career is well-served by working in unconnected research areas but our PIs, not so much.

Thus, UWISDOM was born to serve UW’s bioinformatic needs. Our buy-out model allows disparate research groups access to bioinformatic staff without the need to create new part-time or short-term positions. We offer expertise in ‘omics analyses such as WGS, RNAseq, and more. We come in for a couple weeks or months to complete data analyses that further research aims and contribute to grant applications. Everything is tailored to your projects and your budget.

It is through the support and belief of Dr. Matt Altman and Dr. Tom Hawn that UWISDOM is possible. UWISDOM bioinformaticians hold at least 50% appointment in these home labs, which allows us to begin this endeavor without any dedicated funding. Our goal is to expand UWISDOM to support full-time staff, and we hope that your future projects will help us get there.

Interested in learning more or already have a project for us? Please reach out ( uwisdom@uw.edu ) or setup a consultation.