Dr. Melissa Haendel speaks at NLM about data reusability in translational research

Dr. Melissa Haendel, co-PI of the Monarch Initiative, spoke at the National Library of Medicine on September 25, 2019. Her talk, “Born Reusable: Best Practices for Data Providers for Translational Impact,” focused on the timely topic of data reusability for accelerating translational research. She started with a brief case study that explored the challenging process of diagnosing a rare disease based on various types of phenotypic evidence, which required multiple types of experts to use multiple data sources and tools. (Happily, the affected child was successfully diagnosed and treated.)

Dr. Haendel described some of the interoperability challenges in translational research and some of the resources that are helping to address those challenges, many of which are Monarch-initiated ontologies or tools, such as SEPIO, Mondo, and HPO. Dr. Haendel discussed the challenges involved in making data more FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). She noted, “Getting from FA to FAIR requires some TLC” (Traceable, Licensed, Connected, bit.ly/fair-tlc). Regarding licensing, Dr. Haendel mentioned the (Re)usable Data Project rubric (reusabledata.org), which is a “ruler” for measuring how reusable resources are, both legally and mechanically (described in PLoS ONE). In the context of reusability, she underlined the importance of well-formed, persistent identifiers, which she called “the invisible bedrock of all scientific inquiry” (described in PLoS Bio).

Part of Dr. Haendel’s talk discussed FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), an HL7 Standard for transmitting healthcare data that is being contributed to by the Center for Data to Health (CD2H), the NCATS-funded CTSA informatics coordinating center that she leads. FHIR is being used in an effort to harmonize data across clinical sites, acting as a “clinical adapter” and a foundation upon which interoperability specifications can be based and utilized for clinical research.

Dr. Haendel closed by talking about the Monarch Initiative and NCATS Translator knowledge graphs, which integrate multiple sources of human and research animal data to help reveal mechanisms of disease and aid diagnosis and discovery (see figure). Dr. Haendel’s slides can be found at bit.ly/bornreusable19.