Epidemiology & Biostatistics

The Nikolaus Schultz Lab

Nikolaus Schultz, PhD

Director, Cancer Data Science Initiative; Head of Knowledge Systems, Marie-Josée & Henry R. Kravis Center for Molecular Oncology; Attending Computational Oncologist, Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics

Professor

The Schultz lab focuses on identifying the genomic alterations that underlie different types of cancer. By applying existing and novel computational methods to large scale cancer genomics data sets, the lab aims to better understand the complex mechanisms at the gene and at the pathway level that drive tumor initiation, progression and response to therapy, with the ultimate goal of identifying targeted therapeutic options for cancer patients. A new focus of the lab is the systematic extraction and standardization of clinical data elements from electronic health records. The lab is also involved in collaborative large-scale projects such as The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), AACR Project GENIE, and the Human Tumor Atlas (HTAN). The group also has a strong interest in enabling discoveries by developing novel computational methods and databases that help bridge the divide between computer scientists on one side and clinicians and researchers on the other. Examples of these include the cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics, a popular resource for the visualization and analysis of cancer genomics data, and OncoKB®, a precision oncology knowledgebase.

Featured News

The Mystery of Metastasis: Can a Tumor’s Genetic Mutations Predict Whether and Where Cancer Will Spread?

Data from 25,000 patients is helping scientists answer this and many other important questions.

Feature

Jianjiong Gao, Hongxin Zhang, Nikolaus Schultz, Debyani Chakravarty, and Sarah Suehnholz stand together on a terrace

A Milestone for Precision Oncology: FDA Gives Green Light to MSK’s Genetic Database

OncoKB, a database developed and maintained by investigators at MSK, helps match patients with targeted therapies based on the mutations found in their tumors.

In the Lab

What Was MSK’s Role in TCGA, the Groundbreaking Cancer Genomic Study?

The multicenter project, which yielded dozens of scientific papers on more than 30 different kinds of cancer, has officially drawn to a close.

View All Featured News

Publications Highlights

Jee J, Fong C, Pichotta K, Tran TN, Luthra A, Waters M, Fu C, Altoe M, Liu SY, Maron SB, Ahmed M, Kim S, Pirun M, Chatila W, de Bruijn I, Pasha A, Kundra R, Gross B, Mastrogiacomo B, Aprati TJ, Liu D, Gao J, Capelletti M, Pekala K, Loudon L, Perry M, Bandlamudi C, Donoghue M, Satravada BA, Martin A, Shen R, Chen Y, Brannon AR, Chang J, Braunstein L, Li A, Safonov A, Stonestrom A, Sanchez-Vela P, Wilhelm C, Robson M, Scher H, Ladanyi M, Reis-Filho JS, Solit DB, Jones DR, Gomez D, Yu H, Chakravarty D, Yaeger R, Abida W, Park W, O’Reilly EM, Garcia-Aguilar J, Socci N, Sanchez-Vega F, Carrot-Zhang J, Stetson PD, Levine R, Rudin CM, Berger MF, Shah SP, Schrag D, Razavi P, Kehl KL, Li BT, Riely GJ, Schultz N, MSK Cancer Data Science Initiative Group. Automated real-world data integration improves cancer outcome prediction. Nature. In press.

Suehnholz SP, Nissan MH, Zhang H, Kundra R, Nandakumar S, Lu C, Carrero S, Dhaneshwar A, Fernandez N, Xu BW, Arcila ME, Zehir A, Syed A, Brannon AR, Rudolph JE, Paraiso E, Sabbatini PJ, Levine RL, Dogan A, Gao J, Ladanyi M, Drilon A, Berger MF, Solit DB, Schultz N, Chakravarty D. Quantifying the Expanding Landscape of Clinical Actionability for Patients with Cancer. Cancer Discov. 2024 Jan 12

Nguyen B, Fong C, Luthra A, Smith SA, DiNatale RG, Nandakumar S, Walch H, Chatila WK, Madupuri R, Kundra R, Bielski CM, Mastrogiacomo B, Donoghue MTA, Boire A, Chandarlapaty S, Ganesh K, Harding JJ, Iacobuzio-Donahue CA, Razavi P, Reznik E, Rudin CM, Zamarin D, Abida W, Abou-Alfa GK, Aghajanian C, Cercek A, Chi P, Feldman D, Ho AL, Iyer G, Janjigian YY, Morris M, Motzer RJ, O’Reilly EM, Postow MA, Raj NP, Riely GJ, Robson ME, Rosenberg JE, Safonov A, Shoushtari AN, Tap W, Teo MY, Varghese AM, Voss M, Yaeger R, Zauderer MG, Abu-Rustum N, Garcia-Aguilar J, Bochner B, Hakimi A, Jarnagin WR, Jones DR, Molena D, Morris L, Rios-Doria E, Russo P, Singer S, Strong VE, Chakravarty D, Ellenson LH, Gopalan A, Reis-Filho JS, Weigelt B, Ladanyi M, Gonen M, Shah SP, Massague J, Gao J, Zehir A, Berger MF, Solit DB, Bakhoum SF, Sanchez-Vega F, Schultz N. Genomic characterization of metastatic patterns from prospective clinical sequencing of 25,000 patients. Cell. 2022 Feb 3

de Bruijn I, Kundra R, Mastrogiacomo B, Tran TN, Sikina L, Mazor T, Li X, Ochoa A, Zhao G, Lai B, Abeshouse A, Baiceanu D, Ciftci E, Dogrusoz U, Dufilie A, Erkoc Z, Garcia Lara E, Fu Z, Gross BE, Haynes CD, Heath A, Higgins DM, Jagannathan P, Kalletla K, Kumari P, Lindsay JR, Lisman A, Leenknegt B, Lukasse P, Madala D, Madupuri R, van Nierop P, Plantalech O, Quach J, Resnick A, Rodenburg SYA, Satravada BA, Schaeffer F, Sheridan R, Singh J, Sirohi R, Sumer SO, van Hagen S, Wang A, Wilson M, Zhang H, Zhu K, Rusk N, Brown S, Lavery JA, Panageas KS, Rudolph JE, LeNoue-Newton ML, Warner JL, Guo X, Hunter-Zinck H, Yu TV, Pillai S, Nichols C, Gardos SM, Philip J, Bpc Core Team G, Project Genie Consortium A, Kehl KL, Riely GJ, Schrag D, Lee J, Fiandalo MV, Sweeney SM, Pugh TJ, Sander C, Cerami E, Gao J, Schultz N. Analysis and Visualization of Longitudinal Genomic and Clinical Data from the AACR Project GENIE Biopharma Collaborative in cBioPortal. Cancer Res. 2023 Dec 1

Lotter W, Hassett MJ, Schultz N, Kehl KL, Van Allen EM, Cerami E. Artificial Intelligence in Oncology: Current Landscape, Challenges, and Future Directions. Cancer Discov. 2024 May 1

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People

Nikolaus Schultz, PhD

Cancer biologist Nikolaus Schultz uses computational tools to study the diversity of genomic alterations underlying different cancer types.
PhD, Freie Universitat Berlin

[email protected]: Email Address
Download CV: PDF File

Members

Kevin Boehm — Kevin M. Boehm
Postdoctoral Fellow, Computational Oncology; Resident Physician, Radiation Oncology

Walid Chatila

Senior Computational Biologist Il

Ino de Bruijn, Bioinformatics Engineer — Ino de Bruijn
Bioinformatics Software Engineer III

Jordan Eichholz

‪Computational Biologist I

Christopher Fong, Research Scholar — Christopher Fong
Bioinformatics Software Engineer III

Chenlian (Tom) Fu

WGS Student

Ritika Kundra, MS — Ritika Kundra
Bioinformatics Software Engineer

Brooke Mastrogiacomo
Computational Biologist Il

Jeff Meng
Postdoctoral Fellow, Computational Oncology; Resident Physician, Radiation Oncology

Enrico Moiso

Senior Computational Biologist I

Fatema Nagib

NE Agency Contingent

Subhiksha Nandakumar
Senior Computational Biologist I

John Nguyen

WGS Student

Kobbie Ofori Atta — Kwabena (Kobbie) Ofori-Atta
WGS Student

Karl Pichotta
Senior Computational Biologist Il

Julia Rudolph
Associate Director, CRC Initiatives

Michele Waters
Senior Computational Biologist

Jierui (Jerry) Xu
Computational Biologist I

Lab Alumni

Adam Abeshouse
Bioinformatics Software Engineer

Craig Bielski, MS — Craig Bielski
WGS Student

Frederick Criscuolo

Computational Engineer

Jianjiong Gao, PhD — Jianjiong Gao
Assistant Attending

Benjamin Gross, MS — Benjamin Gross
Head of CMO Data Engineering

Christoph Kreitzer
Graduate Research Assistant

Dong Li

Computational Engineer

Xiang Li
Bioinformatics Software Engineer

Calvin Lu

Bioinformatics Software Engineer

Divya Madala

Bioinformatics Software Engineer

Ramyasree Madupuri
Computational Biologist

Arjun Raj Rajanna
Bioinformatics Engineer

Eduard Reznik

Manager, Biocomputing

Francisco Sanchez-Vega
Assistant Attending

Hongyu Shi
Software Engineer, Benchling, New York, NY

Shaleigh Smith
Bioinformatics Software Engineer

Jing Su
Bioinformatics Software Engineer

Yichao Sun, MS — Yichao Sun
Bioinformatics Software Engineer

Cerise Tang

WGS Graduate Student

Thinh Tran

GSK Graduate Student

Jiaojiao Wang
Bioinformatics Software Engineer

Qingguo Wang
Bioinformatics Software Engineer

Yifu Yao

Bioinformatics Software Engineer

Lab Affiliations

Achievements

Memorial Hospital Award for Excellence in Mentoring (2022)
Geoffrey Beene Junior Faculty Chair (2019)
Josie Robertson Investigator (2013-2018)
Stupski Prize in Prostate Cancer Computational Oncology (2015)
Young Investigator Award, Prostate Cancer Foundation (2014)

Open Positions

To learn more about available postdoctoral opportunities, please visit our Career Center

To learn more about compensation and benefits for postdoctoral researchers at MSK, please visit Resources for Postdocs

Postdoctoral Researcher, Cancer Genomics – Schultz Laboratory Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Apply now

Get in Touch

[email protected]

Lab Head Email
646-888-2604

Lab Phone

Disclosures

Doctors and faculty members often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community.

MSK requires doctors and faculty members to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public.

Nikolaus Schultz discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

Cambridge Innovation Institute
Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)
Innovation in Cancer Informatics
Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)

Novartis
Professional Services and Activities
OneOncology
Professional Services and Activities

The information published here is a complement to other publicly reported data and is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.

This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2023 through disclosure submission in spring 2024). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.

Learn more about MSK’s COI policies here. For questions regarding MSK’s COI-related policies and procedures, email MSK’s Compliance Office at [email protected].

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