Monarch Initiative chosen as DataWorks! Challenge finalist

Vote for us!

The DataWorks! Challenge (www.herox.com/dataworks) rewards teams that demonstrate the power of data sharing or data reuse to advance scientific discovery and human health. A joint initiative of Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) and the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy, it is held yearly, with final awards chosen by a panel of NIH officials. Up to 12 teams will win up to $500,000 in awards.

When we learned of this initiative, we realized that the Monarch Initiative, which promotes the reuse of genotype-phenotype data from a disparate landscape of disease and phenotypic knowledge and data sources, was a perfect fit. Monarch’s initial goal was to leverage “all the phenotype data” from across organisms and sources to improve rare disease diagnostics, because for so many rare diseases there is simply no known underlying mechanism in humans. Monarch resources and integrated data have since become foundational in many downstream applications and contexts, and we work closely with a variety of communities to help standardize data for reuse. Our approach is to maximize availability, making all Monarch resources (including the HPO and Mondo ontologies and the LinkML, SSSOM, and GA4GH Phenopackets standards) freely available to everyone, and to minimize barriers to entry.

Over 100 teams applied for the DataWorks! prize; Monarch was chosen as one of 20 finalists. The two teams that receive the most votes will win “people’s choice recognition awards”. We hope that you will consider voting for us! (Note that you can only vote once.) Just go to https://www.herox.com/dataworks/round/2457/entry/41327 by December 21 and click “Vote for this Submission”!