View NNLM National Center for Data Services Webinar - Supporting Data Sharing in Generalist Repositories

Charles Schmitt, Ph.D. and Danielle Braun, Ph.D. will present "Climate and Health Outcomes Research Data Systems (CHORDS)" on September 13, 2024, from 12:00 p.m.–1:00p.m. EDT.

About the Seminar

Understanding the impact of the environment on human health has been challenged by our limited ability to measure and identify the full extent and diversity of causal factors, which motivates the need for open sharing and reuse of environmental health data. The impacts of the changing climate have now become an important consideration for environmental health research. The ability to find, link, and integrate biomedical and health data with a diverse range of environmental, societal, and behavioral data is needed to fully understand these impacts and to devise solutions and preventive strategies. The Climate and Health Outcomes Research Data Systems (CHORDS) project aims to support biomedical researchers in finding and using the data sets, tools, and models needed to conduct such research. The project aims to provide researchers with a catalog to identify needed resources, tools to support data processing and linkage, and training materials. The project is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Secretary Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund program and is coordinating its efforts with the broader NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative and its Climate Change and Health Research Coordinating Center (CAFÉ RCC).

The Climate Change and Health Research Coordinating Center (CAFÉ), a part of the NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative, aims to accelerate the translation of research on climate change and health by supporting and growing a network of researchers and community partners in a community of practice (COP). The COP encompasses more than 2,000 members who are professionally interested in climate and health, including academic researchers, health care practitioners, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), funding agencies, community organizations, and industry partners. CAFÉ’s activities focus on convening COP members, accelerating their research through access to tools and resources, fostering communication and collaboration, and expanding participation in the multidisciplinary community. One of CAFÉ’s key goals is to develop data resources for fostering data sharing and reuse and facilitate implementation of the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy released in January 2023. Briefly, in partnership with Harvard Dataverse, an NIH-supported generalist repository following FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) principles, the CAFÉ Dataverse collection, was established, allowing COP members to contribute and reuse climate change health data. The CAFÉ GitHub organization was also established to provide code walkthroughs and tutorials for data processing and harmonization for climate change health data.

About the Speakers

Dr. Charles Schmitt
is the Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Office of Data Science and a senior scientist in the NIEHS Division of Translational Toxicology. He focuses on developing and supporting strategies to advance the sharing and use of environmental health data. This work includes overseeing the NIEHS Chemical Effects in Biological Systems (or CEBS) data repository; chairing the Environmental Health Language Collaborative; and supporting the development of several scientific projects, applications, and databases. Prior to joining NIEHS, he served as the Chief Technology Officer at the Renaissance Computing Institute (known as RENCI), where he directed work to develop research cyberinfrastructures and data science capabilities for biomedical research, in addition to working for several years in industry in the areas of data mining, bioinformatics, and software development. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina. Dr. Schmitt is the data infrastructure lead on the CHORDS project.

Dr. Danielle Braun
Danielle Braun is a principal research scientist and the Director of Data Science for Environmental and Climate Health in the Biostatistics Department at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and at the Department of Data Science at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where she also co-leads the BayesMendel laboratory. Her research interests include data science, environmental health, causal inference, risk prediction, genetic epidemiology, measurement error, and survival analysis.

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.
 

Version 2.3.0 of the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI) Hub is now live! 

Developed by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the CCDI Hub allows researchers, data scientists, and community scientists to use and connect with CCDI-supported data, tools, and applications. Its primary goal is to support innovative research and accelerate progress in childhood cancer through enhanced data sharing.

To ensure broader utility, NCI collaborates with the childhood cancer community to identify their needs and improve CCDI resources, which, along with the Hub, are updated regularly.

The latest release includes two new data sets and updates to eight existing data sets, adding nearly 21,000 new files from 1,600 individuals. Pages about the CCDI Hub Explore Dashboard and the CCDI Molecular Characterization Initiative also received updates that enhance usability. 

Explore the CCDI Hub at ccdi.cancer.gov or forward the link to your colleagues!

Questions about CCDI or the CCDI Hub? Email [email protected].  

I am excited to invite you to our Data Sharing and Reuse Seminar where you will learn about real-world use cases for groundbreaking ways of sharing and reusing data to accelerate research.

On July 12th, Dr. Satra Ghosh, Director of Open Data in Neuroscience Initiative and a Principal Research Scientist at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, will speak about the transformative potential and challenges of open data and technologies in neuroscience.

Dr. Ghosh will discuss how a network of tools and platforms to share, analyze and interpret neuroscience data democratizes and accelerates neuroscience discovery. Open data in neuroscience research will facilitate an understanding of neural systems and their impact on human health and behavior.

On August 9th, we will hear from Dr. Robert Schuler, Senior Computer Scientist and Lead Scientist at Information Sciences Institute, and Dr. Jifan Feng, Research Associate at the Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology at the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of the University of Southern California. Drs. Schuler and Feng will highlight FaceBase, a platform that houses craniofacial data, and how it can be used to answer unresolved questions in craniofacial research. The platform aims to make the vast wealth of existing craniofacial data more useable for scientists, clinicians, and surgeons.

On September 13th, Dr. Danielle Braun, Principal Research Scientist, Director of Data Science for Environmental and Climate Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Dr. Charles Schmitt, Director, Office of Data Science, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) will discuss two programs related to health impacts of climate change, the CAFÉ Research Coordinating Center (CAFÉ RCC) and Climate and Health Outcomes Research Data Systems (CHORDS). The CAFÉ RCC is accelerating the translation of research at the intersection of climate change and health by building a community of practice. CHORDS is strengthening data infrastructure for patient-centered outcomes research on climate change and health by providing data on environmental factors, exposures, and health outcomes.

These sessions are part of the ongoing Data Sharing and Reuse Seminar (DSRS) series, which highlights a new story each month, told by researchers at the forefront of sharing and reusing data from diverse disciplines. The series highlights the enormous potential for using existing, rich data sets to generate new insights, as well as researchers who are using creative and innovative ways to share scientific data. The DSRS series is held on the second Friday of each month at noon ET.

For a deeper understanding of data sharing and reuse, and to hear stories from across different research communities, you can view recordings of previous DSRS sessions here. 

If you'd like to receive updates on the DSRS and other ODSS activities and announcements, please sign up for our email list.

If you are interested in speaking at a future DSRS event, please contact your NIH Program Officer and let them know you are interested in being nominated.