fair data

Bryn Roberts has spent thirty years in informatics and data, most recently at Roche and before that at AstraZeneca. Now as Global Head of Data and Analytics at Roche Information Solutions, Roberts applies his career-long learnings to the current era of data in life sciences, offering advice for building data citizenship, creating a FAIR data culture, and avoiding vendor lock-in.  

Links from this episode:  
Bryn Roberts: Reflections on Pharma’s Scientific Computing Journey
Bio-IT World
BioTeam 
Roche 

Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.

Susan Gregurick, Associate Director for Data Science and Director of the Office of Data Science Strategy at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), speaks with Stan Gloss, podcast host and BioTeam founder, about the next iteration of the NIH Strategic Plan for Data Science and the lessons learned from the recent pandemic. “COVID just told us how much we weren’t doing, and how challenging it is to really get FAIR data into the hands of researchers in a timely fashion so they can find it, access it, and use it. We are nowhere close to actually accomplishing that goal,” Gregurick tells Gloss.  

Over the next five years, the NIH plans to create a research data mesh to harmonize data services, enhance Researcher Auth Services to standardize methods for accessing data, develop hybrid data compute infrastructures, and create new language around artificial intelligence, machine learning, and research-inspired data. Hear Gregurick speak about the NIH’s vision to develop tools for ethical AI and her passion for enhancing training in under-resourced communities and building a multi-disciplinary and diverse data workforce. 

Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.

At the National Cancer Institute, Tony Kerlavage knows quite a bit about managing very large pools of data. When NCI launched the Genomic Data Commons, it aimed to democratize access to the genomic data in The Cancer Genome Atlas and other sources. Since then, though, Kerlavage points out that our data types and volumes have only grown. Now NCI is taking a “Commons of Commons” approach to link pools of well-structured data. “The more data we can bring together in a well-structured way, the more value it has in the long run,” he believes. He advocates for sharable Python notebooks and reusable R programming, believing significant investments in data hygiene and interoperability delivers more value than simply mining data lakes with artificial intelligence tools—for now, at least. The challenge for researchers, Kerlavage says, is to view their work with an eye to the future: How might someone else use this data going forward? 

Links from this episode:  
Bio-IT World
BioTeam
NCI Launches Genomic Data Commons
Bob Grossman’s Vision of the Commons of Commons
BioTeam’s Approach to Collaborative Dictionary Authoring 

Trends from the Trenches boiler: Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast delivers your insider’s look at the science, technology, and executive trends driving the life sciences through conversations with industry leaders. BioTeam co-founder Stan Gloss brings years of industry experience in science, data, and technology to conversations exploring what is driving data and discovery, and what’s coming next.