Epidemiology & Biostatistics

The Nikolaus Schultz Lab

Research

Nikolaus schultz
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

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.

Schultz lab

Featured News

colorful picture of cancer cells
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
Illustration of DNA base pairs
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

View All Publications

People

Nikolaus schultz

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

  • 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

Jeff Meng
Postdoctoral Fellow, Computational Oncology; Resident Physician, Radiation Oncology
Sharafudeen Abubakar
Research Fellow
Tejiri Agbamu
GSK Graduate Student
Areej Alsaafin
Areej Alsaafin
Research Fellow
Pranita Atri
Research Fellow
Anika Begum
Senior Project Coordinator
Kevin Boehm
Kevin M. Boehm
Postdoctoral Fellow, Computational Oncology; Resident Physician, Radiation Oncology
Walid Chatila
Walid Chatila
Senior Computational Biologist Il
Ino de Bruijn, Bioinformatics Engineer
Ino de Bruijn
Bioinformatics Software Engineer III
Nikolaos Dimitriou
Research Fellow
Jordan Eiccholz
Jordan Eichholz
‪Computational Biologist I
Christopher Fong, Research Scholar
Christopher Fong
Bioinformatics Software Engineer III
Chenlian Fu
Chenlian (Tom) Fu
WGS Student
Xiang (Molly) Han
WGS Student
Justin Jee
Instructor
Ritika Kundra, MS
Ritika Kundra
Bioinformatics Software Engineer
Desiree Lara
Program Assistant
Brooke Mastrogiacomo
Brooke Mastrogiacomo
Computational Biologist Il
Enrico Moiso
Senior Computational Biologist I
Fatema Nagib
NE Agency Contingent
Subhiksha Nandakumar
Subhiksha Nandakumar
Senior Computational Biologist I
John Nguyen
John Nguyen
WGS Student
Kobbie Ofori Atta
Kwabena (Kobbie) Ofori-Atta
WGS Student
Karl Pichotta
Senior Computational Biologist Il
Julia Rudolph
Julia Rudolph
Associate Director, CRC Initiatives
Evan Seffar
Computational Biologist I
Farheen Shah
Computational Biologist I
Henry Walch
Henry Walch
Computational Biologist Il
Michele Waters
Senior Computational Biologist
Jierui (Jerry) Xu
Computational Biologist I
Adam Abeshouse
Adam Abeshouse
Bioinformatics Software Engineer
Mirella Lorrainy Altoe
Research Fellow
Joshua Armenia
Joshua Armenia
Research Fellow
Craig Bielski, MS
Craig Bielski
WGS Student
Hsiao-Wei (Annice) Chen
Hsiao-Wei (Annice) Chen
Data Curator
Frederick Criscuolo
Computational Engineer
Jianjiong Gao, PhD
Jianjiong Gao
Assistant Attending
Benjamin Gross, MS
Benjamin Gross
Head of CMO Data Engineering
Zachary Heins
Zachary Heins
Bioinformatics Engineer
Christoph Kreitzer
Christoph Kreitzer
Graduate Research Assistant
Ayush Kris
Ayush Kris
WGS Student
Konnor La
Konnor La
Graduate Student
Dong Li
Computational Engineer
Xiang Li
Xiang Li
Bioinformatics Software Engineer
Calvin Lu
Bioinformatics Software Engineer
Divya Madala
Bioinformatics Software Engineer
Ramyasree Madupuri
Ramyasree Madupuri
Computational Biologist
Bastien Nguyen
Bastien Nguyen
Research Scholar
Angelica Ochoa
Angelica Ochoa
Lead Engineer, SMILE
Arjun Raj Rajanna
Arjun Raj Rajanna
Bioinformatics Engineer
Eduard Reznik
Manager, Biocomputing
Francisco Sanchez-Vega
Francisco Sanchez-Vega
Assistant Attending
Hongyu Shi
Hongyu Shi
Software Engineer, Benchling, New York, NY
Shaleigh Smith
Shaleigh Smith
Bioinformatics Software Engineer
Jing Su
Jing Su
Bioinformatics Software Engineer
Selcuk Onur Sumer
Selcuk Onur Sumer
Software Engineer
Yichao Sun, MS
Yichao Sun
Bioinformatics Software Engineer
Cerise Tang
WGS Graduate Student
Thinh Tran
Thinh Tran
GSK Graduate Student
Jiaojiao Wang
Jiaojiao Wang
Bioinformatics Software Engineer
Qingguo Wang
Qingguo Wang
Bioinformatics Software Engineer
Yifu Yao
Bioinformatics Software Engineer

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

Disclosures

Members of the MSK Community 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. These activities outside of MSK further our mission, provide productive collaborations, and promote the practical application of scientific discoveries.

MSK requires doctors, faculty members, and leaders 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. Not all disclosed interests and relationships present conflicts of interest. MSK reviews all disclosed interests and relationships to assess whether a conflict of interest exists and whether formal COI management is needed.

Nikolaus Schultz discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

  • Innovation in Cancer Informatics
    Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)
  • Stand Up to Cancer
    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, 2024 through disclosure submission in spring 2025). 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].


View all disclosures

Related topics: