Publication: OncoLnc, linking TCGA survival and expression data
I am very proud to share with the scientific community OncoLnc, an excellent resource for both exploring survival correlations of your favorite gene, and downloading survival and expression data. As someone who grew up with a parent diagnosed with cancer, I know the pain and fear cancer can cause.
This work was only possible by leaving my MD/PhD program. Yes, it's true that as a physician scientist I may have been able to help some patients with difficult to diagnose diseases, or my lab may have been able to make some important advances in cancer biology...or maybe I would not have been able to get funding.
I am hopeful that OncoLnc will lead to advances in cancer biology through three main avenues:
1) allowing a survey of correlations for 21 cancers with a single click, potentially identifying a role in a cancer the researcher did not expect
2) by listing the rank along with the p-value researchers will be able to focus on the genes most correlated with survival instead of genes that simply have p<.05
3) providing the full lists of correlations in my publication allows a cancer researcher to identify the most correlated genes in their cancer of interest, or lncRNA researchers to identify the lncRNAs most correlated with survival in different cancers.