Abstract 2489: Enabling data access, sharing, collaborative and reproducible research: The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR) data coordinating center
Authors: Aiyetan Paul , Donovan Paul , Mott David , Starr Matthew , Kuchipudi Rajani , Yelisetti Mahesh , Hope Debra , Zeitler Corinne , Mudunuri Uma , Quong Andrew 
Published: August 2019

The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research hosts a Data Coordinating Center and Toolset (the Metadata Designer plus Validator) hereafter referred to as the DCC that embodies a scalable, next-generation biological and cancer research data repository that is flexible, intuitive, and adaptive. The DCC provides integrated management of datasets across all deposited projects making its data more accessible and easily reusable by the cancer research community. The DCC stores and manages access to data, enabling researchers or data depositors to grant controlled access only to specific collaborators while maintaining a user-specified embargo on deposited datasets. The DCC enables a data access and sharing capability aimed to facilitate the development of new biological insights. The DCC implements the ISA (Investigation-Study-Assay) paradigm. The ISA framework provides a rich description of experimental metadata that is agnostic and irrespective of sample characteristic, technology or measurement type. It provides clear and simple sample-to-data relationships that enables resulting data and discoveries to be reproducible and reusable. These data are in the standard Investigation-Study-Assay tab-delimited format (ISA-TAB) format, which describes a scientific investigation, its study or studies, and each study's assay(s). The DCC portal is a public repository of experiment-related information describing cancer and biomedical research investigations. The portal can be used to browse, search, and access data from uploaded datasets. Through its stand-alone Toolset (Metadata Designer plus Validator), the DCC offers data depositors and researchers a simple interface to create and validate ISA-Tab compatible metadata associated with data generated in their research. Deriving new insights from aggregates of datasets and the need for reproducible research has never been more apparent. However, a fundamental requirement for these is a comprehensive metadata annotation and documentation of the research processes - an art that is elusive to researchers. Beyond the resultant publication is the data and metadata. These two basic ingredients are building blocks for a successful reproducible research project. In addition, appropriately curated data and metadata are invaluable resources for meta-analyses of seemingly disparate research studies. Further emphasizing the importance of these basic elements, are the principles of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability (FAIR) - to guide data producers and publishers around obstacles and help maximize added-value gained from published studies. The DCC provides a much-needed resource to the research community for simplifying the sharing of data sets that meet these principles. The DCC portal is located at https://cssi-dcc.nci.nih.gov/cssiportal/

Citation Format: Paul Aiyetan, Paul Donovan, David Mott, Matthew Starr, Rajani Kuchipudi, Mahesh Yelisetti, Debra Hope, Corinne Zeitler, Uma Mudunuri, Andrew Quong. Enabling data access, sharing, collaborative and reproducible research: The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR) data coordinating center [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 2489.