Visualization Approaches for 
Biomedical Omics Data: 
Putting It All Together 
Nils Gehlenborg 
Harvard Medical School 
Center for Biomedical Informatics 
!nils_gehlenborg
Why am I doing this?
Human 
" 
# 
Machine
Human 
" 
INTERPRETATION 
Data 
COMPUTATION GENERATION 
# 
Machine
“In every chain of reasoning, the evidence of the last conclusion can 
be no greater than that of the weakest link of the chain, whatever 
may be the strength of the rest.” 
- Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1786)
Human 
" 
INTERPRETATION 
Data 
COMPUTATION GENERATION 
# 
Machine 
Hypotheses 
Discoveries 
Knowledge 
Cognition
x y1 y2 
1.00 0.96 0.76 
2.00 0.76 -0.14 
3.00 -0.14 -0.91 
4.00 -0.91 -0.84 
5.00 -0.84 0.00 
6.00 0.00 0.84 
7.00 0.84 0.91 
8.00 0.91 0.14 
9.00 0.14 -0.76 
10.00 -0.76 -0.96 
11.00 -0.96 -0.28
1 
0.5 
0 
-0.5 
-1 
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Human 
INTERPRETATION 
| Data 
COMPUTATION GENERATION 
Machine 
Hypotheses 
Discoveries 
Knowledge 
" 
# 
Cognition
What are the data?
Biomedical Omics Data
DNA Icon by Darrin Higgins, from The Noun Project
Genome What is the DNA sequence?
Genome 
HOW? 
sequencing of genomic DNA 
WHAT? 
single nucleotide variants (SNVs) 
copy number variants 
complex structural variants
http://www.broadinstitute.org/igv
http://www.broadinstitute.org/igv
Clark et al. 2009, PLoS Genetics 
http://circos.ca, Krzywinski et al. 2009, Genome Research
source: Human 
destination: Lizard 
chr1 
chr2 
chr3 
chr4 
chr5 
chr21 
chr16 chr17 chr18 chr19 chr20 
chr22 
chrX chrY 
chr3 
chr1 
chr5 
chrb 
chrd 
chrg 
chr15 
chr14 chr4 
chr13 chr2 
chr12 chr6 chr3 
chr11 chr7 chr10 chr8 chr9 chr6 
chra 
chrc 
chrf 
chrh 
line 
saturation 
- + 
10Mb 
chr3 
go to: 
chr3 chr2 
51280143 152008850 
51709189 152345239 
out in 
orientation: 
invert 
match 
inversion 
http://www.mizbee.org
http://genome.lbl.gov/vista
Genome 
Transcriptome 
What is the DNA sequence? 
Which genes are active?
Transcriptome 
HOW? 
sequencing of mRNA/microRNA molecules 
microarray-based hybridization 
WHAT? 
abundance of transcripts/genes/isoforms
http://research.fhcrc.org/mcintosh/en/tools.html
http://miso.readthedocs.org/en/latest/sashimi.html#visualizing-and-plotting-miso-output
Genome 
Transcriptome 
Proteome 
What is the DNA sequence? 
Which genes are active? 
Which proteins are present?
Proteome 
HOW? 
mass spectrometry of peptides 
array-based techniques 
WHAT? 
presence of peptides & proteins 
abundance of peptides & proteins
Genome 
Transcriptome 
Proteome 
Metabolome 
What is the DNA sequence? 
Which genes are active? 
Which proteins are present? 
Which metabolites can be identified?
Metabolome 
HOW? 
mass spectrometry 
NMR spectroscopy 
WHAT? 
presence of metabolites 
abundance of metabolites
Genome 
Transcriptome 
Proteome 
Metabolome 
What is the DNA sequence? 
Which genes are active? 
Which proteins are present? 
Which metabolites can be identified? 
Interactome Which molecules are interacting?
Interactome 
HOW? 
mass spectrometry, yeast-2-hybrid 
text mining 
WHAT? 
links between molecules
Epigenome 
Genome 
Transcriptome 
Proteome 
Metabolome 
How are DNA and associated proteins modified? 
What is the DNA sequence? 
Which genes are active? 
Which proteins are present? 
Which metabolites can be identified? 
Interactome Which molecules are interacting?
Epigenome 
HOW? 
ChIP-seq, ChIP-chip (histones modifications) 
bisulfite sequencing (DNA methylation) 
WHAT? 
histone modifications along genome 
DNA methylation patterns along genome
http://epigenomegateway.wustl.edu/browser/
http://compbio.med.harvard.edu/flychromatin/
http://compbio.med.harvard.edu/flychromatin/
Nucleome 
Epigenome 
Genome 
Transcriptome 
Proteome 
Metabolome 
How is the DNA organized in space/time? 
How are DNA and associated proteins modified? 
What is the DNA sequence? 
Which genes are active? 
Which proteins are present? 
Which metabolites can be identified? 
Interactome Which molecules are interacting?
Nucleome 
HOW? 
3C/4C/5C chromosome conformation capture 
Hi-C sequencing 
WHAT? 
contact probabilities for different parts 
of the genome
Lieberman-Aiden et al., Comprehensive Mapping of Long-Range Interactions 
Reveals Folding Principles of the Human Genome, 2009
Scaling
Dimensions 
Genomic Entities 
Data Types 
Samples 
Timepoints
?
TCGA 
The Cancer Genome Atlas
mRNA expression 
microRNA expression 
DNA methylation 
protein expression 
copy number variants 
mutation calls 
clinical parameters
Stratome
Anthony92931 / Wikimedia Commons + Modification by Nils Gehlenborg
StratomeX 
M Streit, A Lex, S Gratzl, C Partl, D Schmalstieg, H Pfister, PJ Park, N Gehlenborg, “Guided Visual 
Exploration of Genomic Stratifications in Cancer“, Nature Methods 11:884-885 (2014) 
A Lex, M Streit, H-J Schulz, C Partl, D Schmalstieg, PJ Park, N Gehlenborg, “StratomeX: Visual Anal-ysis 
of Large-Scale Heterogeneous Genomics Data for Cancer Subtype Characterization“, Computer 
Graphics Forum 31:1175-1184 (2012)
Is there a mutation that overlaps with this mRNA cluster? 
Is there a mutually exclusive mutation? 
Is there a CNV that affects survival? 
Is there a pathway that is enriched in this cluster? 
Guided Exploration 
Query 
Rank 
Visualize 
Stratifications 
Clinical Params 
Pathways
demand products
users visualization tools
users visualization tools
genome browser 
network viewer 
heatmap visualization 
users visualization tools
http://genome.ucsc.org
genome browser 
network viewer 
heatmap visualization 
users visualization tools
users visualization tools 
customized tools for 
very specific problems
Meyer et al., “MulteeSum: A Tool for Comparative Spatial and Temporal Gene Expression Data”, 2010
users visualization tools 
customized tools for 
very specific problems
What am I doing?
Building infrastructure to 
build visualization tools.
Visualization Tools 
Visualization Components 
Visualization Libraries 
Data Analytics 
Data Management
Visualization Tools 
Visualization Components 
Visualization Libraries 
Data Analytics 
Data Management 
Abstraction
System/Platform 
Visualization Tools 
Visualization Components 
Visualization Libraries 
Data Analytics 
Data Management 
Abstraction
Think about scale. 
Think about systems.
Acknowledgements 
Harvard SEAS Alexander Lex, Hanspeter Pfister 
MD Anderson Cancer Center 
University of Rostock 
Psalm Haseley, Richard Park, Peter J Park 
Michael S Noble, Douglas Voet, Lihua Zou, Spring Liu, Hailei 
Zhang, Sachet Shukla, Aaron McKenna, Andrew Cherniak, 
Pei Lin, Gad Getz 
Jianhua Zhang, Terrence Wu, Ian Watson, Steven Quayle, 
Lynda Chin 
Harvard Medical School 
Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard 
Graz University of Technology Christian Partl, Dieter Schmalstieg 
Johannes Kepler University Linz Samuel Gratzl, Stefan Luger, Marc Streit 
Hans-Jörg Schulz 
Harvard School of Public Health 
Funding 
NIH/NHGRI K99 HG007583 
Ilya Sytchev, Shannan Ho Sui, Winston Hide

Visualization Approaches for Biomedical Omics Data: Putting It All Together