Project Summary
Data is the primary currency for all domains of today's biomedical research. However, data does not have
some of the properties of a good currency: durability, portability, uniformity, convertibility, and acceptability. It is
vast, heterogeneous, geographically distributed, and often protected by access control mechanisms. It requires
hardware and software complex machinery to process. Skills needed for data interpretation are sparse across
the entire biomedical domain. How does one make such a currency universally beneficial to all infectious
disease researchers who study different organisms with disparate goals, motivations, and expertise? This
brings us directly to the main point of this proposal: to implement a common data analysis
medium—BRC.analytics—that would connect infectious disease researchers to data, tools, and workflows.
The transformative tenets of the proposed system are: (1) giving access to an ensemble of data resources via
a single workspace where data can be stored, combined, and analyzed; (2) enabling access to the majority of
high quality open source tools and allow creation of complex workflows in the workspace; (3) ensuring that
workspace in powered by powerful hardware capable of sustaining thousands of users analyzing large
datasets; (4) providing several modes of access including a graphical user interface (GUI) as well as an
Application Programming Interface (API). BRC.analytics is a unique knowledgebase that provides data, tools,
and infrastructure as well as the know-how” on how to apply this power effectively.
