Abstract B033: The Gabriella Miller Kids First Data Resource Portal and CAVATICA: Interoperable cloud platforms for pediatric cancer research

Abstract The Gabriella Miller Kids First Data Resource Center (Kids First DRC) is a cloud-based, open-access ecosystem designed to accelerate pediatric research through harmonized, integrated genomic and clinical data. Developed in alignment with the NIH Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program, Kids First DRC empowers investigators to unlock genetic insights across childhood cancers and congenital conditions by removing traditional barriers to the discovery, access, and analysis of rare disease data.The Kids First DRC builds interoperable cloud platforms that allow investigators to research the genetic causes of pediatric cancer in their browsers without a high-performance computing cluster of their own. These include the Kids First Portal (https://portal.kidsfirstdrc.org), a tool for cohort building and discovery, and CAVATICA (https://cavatica.sbgenomics.com), a powerful analysis platform created by Velsera. The two platforms are connected, allowing researchers to find genomic files of interest on the Kids First Portal before pushing them to a CAVATICA workspace as part of a research project.In this poster, we present recent developments which improve the Kids First Portal and CAVATICA for research use. On the Kids First Portal, we have launched the Variant Exploration tool, which allows users to search for genomic and somatic variants present in biospecimens from Kids First participants, annotated with context from informational databases such ClinVar, CADD, gnomAD, and COSMIC. Users with approved access requests can extend their research further using the Variant Workbench on CAVATICA, a Jupyter-notebook environment with germline and somatic variants loaded in queryable tables that can be joined back to specific participants to facilitate rapid variant discovery. Researchers looking to access source genomic files can use them for analyses on the CAVATICA platform using the Global Alliance for Genomic Health (GA4GH) Data Repository Service (DRS). DRS allows users to access genomic files on the cloud platform of their choice without creating copies of the data, enabling users to combine Kids First datasets with other pediatric cancer studies of interest within the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI's) Genomic Data Commons (GDC), such as the Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments (TARGET) study. Overall we are excited to share these new features with the community and to continue to support research discoveries in the field of pediatric cancer genomics. Citation Format: David M Higgins, Joseph Flores-Toro, Danielle Daee, Allison Heath, Adam Resnick. The Gabriella Miller Kids First Data Resource Portal and CAVATICA: Interoperable cloud platforms for pediatric cancer research [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference in Cancer Research: Discovery and Innovation in Pediatric Cancer— From Biology to Breakthrough Therapies; 2025 Sep 25-28; Boston, MA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2025;85(18_Suppl_2):Abstract nr B033.