Speaker
Description
cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics is an open-source platform used by cancer researchers at 100+ institutions worldwide to explore mutation data. When you contribute here, your pull request isn't just a commit — it's a tool an oncology researcher might use tomorrow to understand a real tumor.
This talk is a fast walkthrough of two features I built as a GSoC 2025 contributor to bring Variant Allele Frequency (VAF) a metric that reveals whether a mutation is a dominant tumor driver or a minor subclonal eventinto cBioPortal's core views: cohort-level box plots on the Plots tab, and a new heatmap track in OncoPrint, cBioPortal's flagship visualization used across thousands of studies.
The bigger point: open, community-reviewed code sitting directly in the path of cancer research gets better precisely because anyone can read it, question it, and improve it. I'll close with what it actually looks like to go from a first small PR to a merged, mentor-reviewed feature and why bio/health is a great place for open-source contributors to make code that matters.
Session author's bio
Rishi Prasad Sulakhe is a final-year student at MNNIT Allahabad and a Google Summer of Code 2025 contributor to cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics, where he built VAF visualization features now merged into the platform's core. I'm also Computer Coding Club representative at MNNIT Allahabad, guiding my peers about open source
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| Level of Difficulty | Beginner |
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