Supporting the UK’s life science community with world class digital infrastructure for data driven bioscience.

BioFAIR’s aim is a step change in project Research Data Management (RDM) through developing and operating a national Data Commons digital infrastructure to maximise the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, Reusability (FAIR) and Reproducibility of UKRI-supported life science data.

BioFAIR will support the production, sharing, integration and archiving of high quality and accessible data for digitally-driven life sciences by enabling essential end-to-end RDM and analytics, and driving the culture change that this requires.

The UK hosts significant numbers of well-supported, active public data archives and specialised environments (e.g. EMBL-EBI, HDR-UK Gateway, which offer support and RDM for researchers using these specific environments.

A UK-focused Data Commons will assemble, host and operate a coherent set of registries, repositories, data management and analysis services providing a seamless, end-to-end research environment for UK users. It will allow data use beyond the data creator’s original purpose, ensuring the research integrity and quality of data collection and analysis, using community standards. It will bridge life scientists’ cycle of collection→ analysis→ sharing in local, RDM and current national and global data infrastructures, simplifying and streamlining their use.

BioFAIR will be a gateway to existing state-of-the-art tools for analysing and sharing data, allowing “bring your own data” (BYOD) bespoke pipelines. Researchers will develop their workflows and have their code hosted for cross-project use, levelling up access to advanced data processing platforms and expertly developed data-wrangling and processing pipelines, including AI-based approaches. Computational resources for data storage and computing will underpin the Data Commons services for data analysis, hosting, and archival support.

BioFAIR overview: Data Stewardship, Training, user support, communities of practice. Uses Web Portal and API, covered by Tools, workflow catalogue. Calls BioFAIR hybrid e-infrastructure, multi-tiered storage and HPC/cloud to support the Data and Methods Commons. This access public deposition databases and public curated data resources in ELIXIR and beyond. The e-infrastructure works with the BioFAIR Data Lake, that store project "core" data rather than raw data objects, in a DataHub Catalogue, Store & Broker. Calls then Generalist repositories, Institutional repositories and Lab file stores. Through FAIR Data preperation & submission these can be lifted into the Public deposition databases. Overview of BioFAIR, adapted from ELIXIR All Hands 2023 poster https://doi.org/10.7490/f1000research.1119446.1

BioFAIR complements and enhances existing national and international life science data infrastructures, e.g., UK-generated high-quality data and automated data submission to EMBL-EBI public archives and provides a national platform for project-specific BYOD analysis workflows using EMBL-EBI and UK data and tools.

BioFAIR was conceived by ELIXIR-UK which also report BioFAIR Feasibility study.

eScience Lab involvement

Carole Goble is joint Head of Node of ELIXIR-UK and will continue to have an active role in shaping the establishment of BioFAIR.

BioFAIR will take advantage of many of the eScience Lab products:

It is important to note that BioFAIR is an UK-wide collaboration beyond the above highlights, more details will be available at BioFAIR website.

References

Nicola Soranzo1, Robert Andrews, Tim Beck, Alexia Cardona, Emily Delva, Catherine Knox, Gos Micklem, Christine Orengo, Krzysztof Poterlowicz, Susanna-Assunta Sansone, Neil Hall, Carole Goble, ELIXIR-UK (2023):
BioFAIR: a new BioCommons infrastructure for the UK life science.
ELIXIR All Hands 2023, Dublin, Ireland, 2023-06-05/–09.
F1000Research 12(ELIXIR):596 (poster)
https://doi.org/10.7490/f1000research.1119446.1

Nicola Soranzo, Carole Goble (2023):
BioFAIR: a new BioCommons infrastructure for UK life science.
UKRI DRI Community Congress 2023 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7708304

Technopolis Group, Nicola Soranzo, Catherine Knox, Hannah Norman, Robert Andrews, Tim Beck, Gos Micklem, Christine Orengo, Susanna Assunta Sansone, Neill Hall, Carole Goble (2021):
BioFAIR Final Report. BioFAIR Feasibility Study.
Zenodo
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7924339