The UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) has established a Core Informatics Team to enhance data access, training, partnerships, and technical capacity for researchers. The team plays a vital role in fostering data sharing, improving computational methods, and enabling advanced data science across its centres. The team supports dementia research with scalable and reproducible informatics solutions.
The Core Informatics Team is led by bioinformaticians, biologists, and software engineers, working together to develop and implement data-driven strategies. Their expertise ensures that researchers across UK DRI have access to well-maintained data pipelines, cloud-based resources, and a Knowledge Graph. The team also provides training, consultation, and infrastructure to help scientists integrate multi-omics, imaging, and behavioural data for innovative dementia research. The Core Informatics team work structured around five core pillars:
- Empowering UK DRI researchers with accessible and interpretable data resources.
- Implementing standardised omics analysis pipelines on platforms such as the ADDI cloud environment.
- Harmonising access to multi-modal datasets, including genomics, proteomics, electrophysiology, imaging, and digital biomarkers.
- Knowledge Graph Network: A gene-centric data integration model clustering genes to reveal novel insights.
- Ensuring inclusive data access by incorporating various datasets and diverse population datasets to address health disparities.
- Supporting data democratisation initiatives that allow easy access to a knowledge graph which created using generated data across UK DRI.
- Regular informatics training sessions, including data analysis in R , pipeline development and, multi-omics data visualisation.
- Delivering training courses in collaboration with EMBL-EBI and other international partners.
- Supporting Early Career Researchers (ECRs) through initiatives like the First Informatics ECR Symposium (Jan 2024) and “Behind the p-value” seminar series.
- Collaborating with leading organisations, including Health Data Research UK, the DEMON Network, Dementias Platform UK, and The Alan Turing Institute.
This documentation repository provides a structured and comprehensive guide, covering two levels of documentation:
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User-Level Documentation – Designed for end-users, this section provides step-by-step guides and best practices on how to effectively use key platforms and tools, including:
- Pipelines – Instructions on setting up, running, and troubleshooting the pipelines.
- ADDI Cloud Platform – Guidance on accessing and utilizing the cloud-based infrastructure for data processing and analysis.
- Knowledge Graph Web Portal – User-friendly documentation on exploring, querying, and leveraging the knowledge graph for research insights.
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Technical-Level Documentation (Standard Operating Procedures - SOPs) – Tailored for developers, system administrators, and engineers, this section includes in-depth technical SOPs covering:
- Kubernetes – Deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
- Neo4j – Best practices for setting up, managing, and querying graph databases.
- NginX – Configuration and optimization for high-performance web serving and reverse proxying.
- Keycloak – Identity and access management for securing applications. - SonarQube – Static code analysis for maintaining code quality and security.
- Partitioning – Approaches to data partitioning for scalability and performance optimization.
This repository serves as a centralised knowledge base, ensuring both users and technical teams have the necessary resources to efficiently work with the infrastructure, tools, and platforms. Whether you're a researcher looking for user-friendly guidance or a developer seeking in-depth technical insights, this documentation has you covered.
📨 ukdri-informatics@ucl.ac.uk