Innovation is stunted if there is no framework that enables researchers to share and work on data in a structured, meaningful, and compatible way.
Whether with peers or a colleague across the globe, collaborative databases are essential for efficiently inputting, working on, and accessing shared data. The structures of these databases put aside concerns for data incompatibility while promoting a living and collaborative research environment, remotely.
We will hear about recent efforts by JDRF to complete their Microbiome Initiative Bioinformatics Center (JDRF-MIBC), a multi-institutional database supporting researchers, facilitating unhindered data access and compatibility between research groups. This center creates a common framework of computing infrastructure, software, and protocols to help translate microbiome research into actionable type 1 diabetes (T1D) diagnostics and therapies.
The continued development of these types of data infrastructures will be key to accelerating innovation and fostering collaboration as the field of microbiome research becomes increasingly translational.
Topics Include:
- Key benefits of common data frameworks for microbiome research — allowing meaningful remote collaboration.
- The importance of the interface for accessing data — sharing is hindered if data is inaccessible or under-accessible.
- Using standardized protocols, both in the wet lab and for data — facilitating cross-study comparisons.
- The availability of published and unpublished data (raw and analyzed, including associated meta-data) — accessible to the research community at the time of publication.
- Consortia working together to leverage resources toward a common goal — which is when accelerated innovation happens.