• Home
  • Join the Alliance
    • About Us
    • Our Members
    • Become a Member
    • Join the PA Team
  • Join A Project
    • All Projects
    • Chemical Safety Library Project
    • DataFAIRy Bioassay Annotation Project
    • Diversity & Inclusion in STEM Leadership Program
    • FAIR Implementation Project
    • IDMP Ontology Project
    • Microbiome Project
    • Natural Language Processing Use Case Database Project
    • Semantic Enrichment of ELN Data Project
  • Join a Community
    • All Communities
    • Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
    • Clinical Trial Environmental Impact
    • Controlled Substance Compliance
    • Lab of the Future
    • Pistoia Alliance/FDA In Vitro Pharmacology
    • Quantum Computing
    • Social Media & Real-World Evidence
    • User Experience for Life Sciences
  • Submit an Idea
  • Events
    • All events
    • Submit an Event
    • Sponsor a Webinar
    • Global Knowledge-Sharing Events
    • Past Webinars
  • News

  • Home
  • Join the Alliance
    • About Us
    • Our Members
    • Become a Member
    • Join the PA Team
  • Join A Project
    • All Projects
    • Chemical Safety Library Project
    • DataFAIRy Bioassay Annotation Project
    • Diversity & Inclusion in STEM Leadership Program
    • FAIR Implementation Project
    • IDMP Ontology Project
    • Microbiome Project
    • Natural Language Processing Use Case Database Project
    • Semantic Enrichment of ELN Data Project
  • Join a Community
    • All Communities
    • Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
    • Clinical Trial Environmental Impact
    • Controlled Substance Compliance
    • Lab of the Future
    • Pistoia Alliance/FDA In Vitro Pharmacology
    • Quantum Computing
    • Social Media & Real-World Evidence
    • User Experience for Life Sciences
  • Submit an Idea
  • Events
    • All events
    • Submit an Event
    • Sponsor a Webinar
    • Global Knowledge-Sharing Events
    • Past Webinars
  • News
Become a Member
Search

Search...

  • Menu

Pistoia Alliance Launches New DataFAIRy: Bioassay Project to Make More Data Machine-Readable and to Drive AI Adoption

Alliance seeks new participants and funding for scale-up and rollout of the project to ensure bioassay data adhere to FAIR principles and is AI-ready

Boston, June 22, 2021: The Pistoia Alliance a global, not-for-profit alliance that advocates for greater collaboration in life sciences R&D, today launches the second phase of its DataFAIRy: Bioassay project, which aims to convert bioassay data into machine-readable formats that adhere to the FAIR guiding principles of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. The current pilot phase has been sponsored by AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squib, Novartis, and Roche, and has successfully annotated 496 assays using a Natural Language Processing model that has been custom-built to recognize life sciences language. This second phase aims to scale the annotation process by 10 to 100-fold, and eventually promote the data model to become the industry standard.

 

Biological assays are analytical methods that are crucial for testing compounds being considered for new drugs, as well as monitoring environmental toxicity. There are currently more than 1.3 million biological assay protocols that exist in plain-text formats, such as published papers or vendor notes. Selection and validation of assays currently requires a labor-intensive search, taking scientists up to 12 weeks per assay.

 

Adhering to the DataFAIRy model will reduce the time scientists spend searching and planning assay experiments. In addition, assay metadata is a popular data type for post-hoc data mining. But most of these published data and metadata are not in a form suitable for automated mining. They are partially annotated in public data banks, but the volume, depth, and quality of these annotations are inadequate for addressing many current and future business questions. Yet, Gartner predicts that 85 percent of AI projects will deliver erroneous outcomes due to data issues, for example, information not being machine-readable. Projects such as DataFAIRy are therefore crucial to AI adoption being successful in the life sciences.

 

“For the duration of my career, which has spanned the last thirty years, unstructured data has been a major problem for scientists. As the volume, variety, and complexity of assay information continues to increase, organizations must manage their data more effectively, so that researchers can make the most out of their time and organizations can fully realize the benefits of digital transformation,” explains Dr. Vladimir Makarov, Project Manager of The Pistoia Alliance Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Centre of Excellence. “The DataFAIRY model we have developed will not only reduce the time bench scientists spend searching for assay information. It may also allow them to skip experiments known to have failed in the past. In turn, this will decrease the costs for companies and accelerate vital research.”

 

Although digitalization has made companies more aware of the importance of robust data management, the lack of industry standards is still a barrier to successful annotation and management of protocols, including assays. Adopting the FAIR principles is the first step towards enabling greater data sharing between organizations and helping scientists cope with the growing volume and complexity of data generated. Additionally, current data models are not built to recognize scientific language so a new model must be created to automate the annotation of these valuable resources. The second stage of the DataFAIRy project will further develop a model of this kind in a community-wide collaborative way.

 

“AI and Natural Language processing tools need to be built with scientific terminology in mind in order to be successful,” continues Dr. Makarov. “The DataFAIRy model we have built will automate the annotation process so that assays are searchable and reusable, speeding up valuable research. We hope that this model will become the community standard for the publication of new assays and for the management of existing assays across vendors, regulatory agencies, and publishers, in addition to pharma and biotech.”

 

If you are interested in supporting the next stage of the DataFAIRy project, please contact ProjectInquiry@pistoiaalliance.org. Or, for assistance adopting FAIR in your organization, you can download the Pistoia Alliance’s free FAIR Toolkit, which contains method tools, training, and use cases, allowing organizations to learn from industry successes.

 

—ENDS—

 

About the Pistoia Alliance
The Pistoia Alliance is a global, not-for-profit members’ organization made up of life science companies, technology, and service providers, publishers, and academic groups working to lower barriers to innovation in life science and healthcare R&D. It was conceived in 2007 and incorporated in 2009 by representatives of AstraZeneca, GSK, Novartis, and Pfizer who met at a conference in Pistoia, Italy. Its projects transform R&D through pre-competitive collaboration. It overcomes common R&D obstacles by identifying the root causes, developing standards and best practices, sharing pre-competitive data and knowledge, and implementing technology pilots. There are currently over 150 member companies; members collaborate on projects that generate significant value for the worldwide life sciences R&D community, using The Pistoia Alliance’s proven framework for open innovation.

 

Media Contact:
Tanya Randall
The Pistoia Alliance
+44 7887 811332
tanya.randall@pistoiaalliance.org

Join the Mailing List

Posted on June 22, 2021 by Yasheaka Oakley
Categories: FAIR Implementation, Pistoia Alliance News

Tags: data, datafairy, FAIR


Events

07 Feb 2023

Quantum Computing: What are the Pharma Use Cases?

Book this event >
07 Feb 2023

Pistoia Alliance Connect Meet Up (Basel, Switzerland – Invitation Only)

Basel Switzerland
Book this event >
15 Feb 2023

Get to Know the Pistoia Alliance and our Projects

Book this event >
22 Feb 2023 - 23 Feb 2023

SmartLab Exchange

Book this event >
Follow Us
Active Projects
Natural Language Processing (NLP) Use Case Database Project
IDMP Ontology Project
Diversity & Inclusion in STEM Leadership Program
Unified Integrated Knowledge Base
Microbiome Project
Data Visualization Project
Methods Hub Project
Informed Consent Blockchain Project
Quality Generation and Ethical Use of Digital Health Data in Clinical Studies
Semantic Enrichment of ELN Data Project (SEED)
Sign up for Pistoia Alliance Communications

© Copyright Pistoia Alliance, Inc., 2020 | Contact us at info@pistoiaalliance.org | Terms of use | Privacy Statement

By clicking "Agree" you are agreeing to the following terms and conditions for the use of the UDM XML Schema definition.

This website intends to use cookies to improve the site and provide you with a better browsing experience. If you select "Continue" or continue to browse the site without customizing your choices, you agree to our use of cookies. Find out more in our Online Privacy Statement.

Continue More Info