August Data Sharing and Reuse Seminar

Robert Schuler, Ph.D. and Jifan Feng, Ph.D. will be presenting FaceBase: Empowering Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research Through Data Sharing and Reuse on August 9, 2024, from 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m. EDT.

About the Seminar

FaceBase is a trusted data resource for research and education on craniofacial and dental development and malformations/diseases across human and animal models. It supports the translational spectrum of dental, oral, and craniofacial (DOC) research by refining curation procedures for clinical and public health data while bolstering data management for basic research. The presentation consists of two main parts:

Part 1: Introduction to FaceBase. Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NICDR), FaceBase is a community-building platform that offers a cloud-based, TRUST-worthy repository of high-quality FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) data resources. Data are easily discoverable through faceted search interfaces; accessible on the web; interoperable using standardized vocabulary (e.g., UBERON, NCBI Gene, MGI); and reusable, with comprehensive descriptions and detailed protocol documentation. FaceBase also provides resources to assist the community in meeting the new data management and sharing requirements.

Part 2: Examples of FaceBase Data Reuse in DOC Research. An individual laboratory combined its single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) or bulk RNA sequencing data with scRNA-seq data from the FaceBase website. This data reuse enabled the laboratory to identify cell–cell interaction mechanisms involved in the regulation of tooth root morphogenesis and uncover novel candidate molecules that may facilitate the suture repair process.
 

About the Speakers

Robert Schuler, Ph.D., University of Southern California (USC)
Dr. Schuler is a Senior Computer Scientist, Lead Scientist at the USC Information Sciences Institute and the technical lead for the FaceBase Data Hub (www.facebase.org), NIDCR’s craniofacial research data hub. Prior to FaceBase, Dr. Schuler was a member of the Biomedical Informatics Research Network leadership team at the NIH National Center for Research Resources. He also led the development and deployment of large-scale research data Grids including a multisite collaborative functional neuroimaging grid and a veterinary pathology network for the National Primate Research Centers.

Jifan Feng, Ph.D., USC
Dr. Feng is a Research Associate in Professor Yang Chai’s laboratory at the Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology at the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC. Her research focuses on craniofacial development and stem cell biology. She combines mouse genetics and RNA sequencing techniques to explore the molecular mechanisms that regulate embryonic development and stem cell fate determination in craniofacial mesenchymal structures.
 

About the Seminar Series

The seminar is open to the public and registration is required each month. Individuals who need interpreting services and/or other reasonable accommodations to participate in this event should contact Janiya Peters at 301-670-4990. Requests should be made at least five days in advance of the event.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Data Science Strategy hosts this seminar series to highlight exemplars of data sharing and reuse on the second Friday of each month at noon ET. The monthly series highlights researchers who have taken existing data and found clever ways to reuse the data or generate new findings. A different NIH institute or center will also share its data science activities each month.