Bioinformatics leaders partner to build platform for NIH Data Commons

The life sciences are in the midst of a data revolution. Technologies such as genome sequencing, gene-expression analysis, and high-resolution imaging are generating vast amounts of data that hold great potential for biomedical breakthroughs, while posing enormous challenges for data management.
Bioinformatics experts now view cloud-based computing and data storage as the most effective way to manage and use these rapidly growing biomedical datasets. But they have not yet worked out exactly how to build an efficient cloud-based platform for biomedical research.
Leaders in the field at UC Santa Cruz, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and the University of Chicago have now formed a partnership called the Commons Alliance to address this issue, with major funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“This project represents the culmination of years of effort to finally bring biomedical research into the internet and cloud computing era,” said David Haussler, director of the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute.