Knowledge Systems Group (KSG)

We are a software engineering and data science group at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, building software systems that advance cancer research and precision cancer medicine.

Recent Publications

KSG members recently published two papers on AI in oncology: a preprint describing MatchMiner-AI, an open-source LLM-powered platform for clinical trial matching trained on synthetic EHR data, and a broad review of AI across the cancer care continuum — covering detection, diagnosis, and treatment. See all recent publications →

Big Data Platforms

We organize and curate genomic data from thousands of cancer patients and build tools that help researchers analyze and visualize it to enable discovery.

Clinical Platforms

We build software that enables precision cancer medicine and helps connect the next patient at DFCI to the right treatment or trial.

We also work on MatchMiner Dashboard, KSG Infrastructure, Spatial Profiling, and more.

View all projects →
KSG Overview
Multidisciplinary

Our team brings together software engineers, computational biologists, bioinformatics engineers, project managers, and clinicians — all working toward a common mission.

Open Source

We are strong believers in open, collaborative development. cBioPortal, MatchMiner Genomics, and MatchMiner-AI are fully open source on GitHub.

Agile Development

Small, empowered teams move quickly and iterate in close collaboration with clinicians and researchers, with continuous deployment and rapid feedback cycles.

Data Visualization

We make complex genomic data accessible and interpretable, building intuitive interfaces — like cBioPortal — used by researchers and clinicians worldwide.

Clinical Impact

Our software is in active clinical use at DFCI, connecting patients to precision medicine trials and translating research advances directly into patient care.

AI-Forward

We are actively integrating AI and large language models across our platforms — from MatchMiner-AI's LLM-powered trial matching to AI applications across cancer detection, diagnosis, and treatment.

KSG Alumni

KSG has launched careers across the industry. Our alumni are now at Google DeepMind, Amazon, Meta, Datadog, Foundation Medicine, Caris Life Sciences, and Mass General Brigham — and several have gone on to found their own companies, including Savvyn, GenHealth.ai, and SE4BIO. Meet our alumni →