Ten private partners and six academic partners recently signed the project agreement for ODEX4all: the open discovery and exchange of (big) data in the life sciences project. Odex4all is co-funded by the Dutch research council (NWO) and the Netherlands eScience Center. The project will contribute to the interoperability theme of DTL Data and is closely linked to the FAIRPORT initiative, by ensuring that all data published in the scope of the project is FAIR (Findadable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable).
Odex4all’s goal is to address the semantics and analytics (‘linked data’) aspects of the ‘big data’ challenges in the life sciences. It is aimed at cross-domain data sharing and optimal re-use by realising full interoperability on key public and proprietary information across ‘red’ (human), ‘green’ (plant) and ‘white’ (food & nutrition) data sets.
The project is set up as a public private partnership, with private partners contributing in cash or in kind to specific use cases, while NWO and NLeSC collectively ‘triple’ the cash contributions of the private partners. The PI of the project is Prof. Barend Mons of the LUMC biosemantics group, who is also Head of Node ELIXIR in DTL. An ODEX4all engineering team, under the guidance of a professional CTO and the PI’s in the project, will work in close concert with other data-related initiatives in the DTL and NLeSC partner constituency to help realise the generic FAIR infrastructure.
ODEX4all will provide a technical scoping & feasibility study for the delivery of linked data (nanopublications and cardinal assertions), initially to its partners, but essentially to the entire life science community. This would basically enable an open data exchange for all interested parties. Although the initial project will cover data that is specifically relevant for the life sciences, the technology platform can be used for all scientific areas.
The ODEX4all approach is closely related to the semantic technology that was succesfully deployed in the Open PHACTS IMI project in which LUMC, NBIC, UVA and Maastricht University are core partners, as well as to the semantic approaches of the industrial partners EURETOS and CRAYanalytics.
ODEX4all project information:
Coordinator: Leiden University Medical Center
Project management: Phortos Consultants
Private partners
- CRAYanalytics
- DSM Food specialties
- EURETOS
- Elsevier
- NBIC
- NIZO food research
- ResearchAnt foundation
- Roche Diagnostics
- Vilmorin & Cie
- Nature Genetics
Academic partners
- Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam
- FOM-Nikhef, Amsterdam
- Leiden University Medical Center
- Maastricht University
- Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen
- Free University of Amsterdam (VU)
- Wageningen University
Please note that there are two options to become associated with this project:
- Existing or new private partners are invited to contribute in cash to the project, with a novel use case. If you are interested in this option, please express your interest by e-mail directly to the lead PI: b.mons[at]lumc.nl
- Parties that share an interest in FAIR data publishing can become an ‘associated partner’. If you are interested in becoming an associated partner, a light MoU is sufficient. Please contact arie.baak[at]phortosconsultants.com for information