Metabolomics Data Interoperability IG

Metabolomics assesses the molecular state of an organism or collections of organisms through the comprehensive quantitative and qualitative analysis of all small molecules in cells, tissues, and body fluids. It has become an important phenotyping technique for molecular biology and medicine. In addition application of metabolomics in environmental science, toxicology, food and medical industry is well established, growing and documented. Metabolomics studies generate large amounts of analytical data (Giga- to Terabytes depending on the size of the study) and therefore impose significant challenges for biomedical and life science e-infrastructures to cope with such data volumes and ensure that the data is captured, stored and disseminated based on open and widely accepted community standards. The collaborative development, drawing from a wide range of stakeholders, and the subsequent adoption, promotion of and training on common standards, systems and best practices are pivotal to the metabolomics community, as well as to the wider data reproducibility agenda.

The Metabolomics Data Interoperability Interest Group (IG) aims to provide a forum to discuss all aspects of metabolomics data management and harmonization. These discussions will also focus on barriers and potential solutions to those barriers, and on the exploration of and definition of policy for metabolomics data management.

We are involving a broad group of researchers, technologists and curators.

In particular this IG will address:

·       Interoperability of databases;

·       Coordination of standards, e.g. convergence on shared terminology, edaption of common tools and services, and workflows for data exchange, integration and publication.

This IG will liaise with other existing technical and domain specific IGs and WGs under RDA, including (but not limited to) the Big Data Analytics IG, Data Foundation and Terminology WG, the Toxicogenomics IG, and will also bridge with external, existing world-wide activities (see links below).

The initial membership of the Metabolomics Data Interoperability Interest Group is drawn from the leaders of several internationally recognised research programmes that are developing metabolomics databases as well as from the international Metabolomics Society’s Board of Directors.