More for your money - through better archiving of genetic data

Deborah Leigh, there are various large databases in which genetic information is publicly accessible - from complete, decoded genomes of various organisms to individual gene sequences. You and your colleagues want to change how this data is archived. Why?

Let’s take the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC), that is an umbrella for the European, the American and the Japanese genetic databases, as an example. It is very well established and has been around since 1987, it has a huge volume of data and is an excellent resource, for example to identify new species or develop new methods. But up until last year it lacked mandatory minimum standards for metadata, descriptors like the date and location of sampling. Not having this information made it very difficult to fully utilise the corresponding genetic data. But to fulfill our obligation to the public to utilize our research funds as extensively as possible, we have to do that.

What do you propose to make genetic information in archives more accessible?

We suggest standardized formats for different types of genetic and genomic data. That might seem small, as these formats are already widely used, but to standardize them would allow to access genetic data more easily. It would, for example, make it possible for non-specialist researchers and practitioners to share data with a clear processing history with new partners and would also help remove technology barriers to reuse like the need for a computer cluster for genomic data processing which would help ensure greater equity globally.

And what about the metadata you mentioned?

We ask for the mandatory inclusion of as much metadata as possible and that is safe for the species to publish. For some protected species, for example, it might be safer not to specify locations. That type of data is important for different reasons. Many reanalysis using methods in population and landscape genetics can’t be done without location information or sampling year. It is also keeping the data available for future innovation. We may not think of reuses now that other researchers would come up with in the future, and we need to provide them with as much extra information as possible to enable that. In our paper we also explicitly ask researchers to retroactively archive older data or supplement it to adhere to these new standards and fix past mistakes. What we're aiming for is that every data set that's or has been produced in the past is accessible and can be utilized in every possible way to ensure maximum gains from research funding. Essentially so that the public get the ‘most for their money’.