Integrative Data Analytics Core

The Integrative Data Analytics Core will provide Center investigators access to the instruments and expertise to standardize, quantify, and integrate omics, imaging and clinical traits. The Core will provide guidance and expertise on data management (e.g. data collection protocol, data storage tool usage), image processing (e.g. image enhancement, image denoising, image segmentation, imaging feature extraction, image texture analysis), omics data analysis (e.g. genome, epigenome, and transcriptome study design, quality control, and normalization), and integrating omics across modalities and species (human compared to model organism). Finally, this Core will assist Center investigators with analyzing all imaging, omics, and preclinical phenotype data or clinical data using integrative approaches, machine learning model training, validation, and interpreting the results.


The Integrative Data Analytics Core will provide this critical function for the musculoskeletal research community and will enable increased communication and knowledge-sharing among Center investigators as well as growth across UM. The team of Core Directors and Core Staff is composed of experts at analyzing data with different modalities and will provide a unique opportunity for Center investigators to develop and apply data science skills to their problems in a cost-effective and efficient manner.


The Integrative Data Analytics Core will provide expertise in designing and implementing data analytical systems to Center investigators consisting of the following main components:

1) Imaging data analysis

2) Omics data analysis

3) Statistical assessment of biological and biomedical data and integrative machine learning

Contact: Contact Stephen Parker, PhD when beginning a project and for general assistance with core access. He will provide guidance on experimental design and the appropriate Faculty and Core expert to contact next. Each investigator will also meet with a Faculty Core Expert (Dr. Parker: omics analyses and integration; Dr. Soroushmehr: image analyses; Dr. Najarian: machine learning) to establish a plan that best supports their research project, and to obtain advice on experimental design, sample size estimates and projected integrative analyses.

Core Leadership

Services Offered and Prices

First time consultations will likely require 1-2 hours with the Director and that discussions may include trainees from the user’s laboratory.


The amount of support provided to MiMHC members will be determined during this initial meeting. This support could range from providing guidance to ongoing projects, to training of MiMHC staff and trainees to enable them to conduct analyses, to the execution of analyses by core experts.


After the analysis is completed, the Director will work with the investigator to review data quality and systematically evaluate it for novel insights into biological or biomechanical pathways.

Referencing Core services in manuscripts

When referencing the use of the MiMHC Core services in your manuscripts, please use the following text:

"Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P30 AR069620. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.”