FAIRification of high-dimensional biomarker data

Contact: projectenquiries@pistoiaalliance.org

Biomarkers are objective, quantifiable characteristics of biological processes through comprehensive profiling of the genome, transcriptome and metabolome. In drug development, with the emergence of cost-effective, high-throughput technologies, molecular biomarkers provide an unprecedented opportunity for new sources of patient classifiers and patient response predictors. While an increasing number of diagnostic, predictive or prognostic biomarkers are approved by the health authorities, it is important to extend the use of high-dimensional biomarker data in the clinical data re-use setting, to enable further analytics and insights, for the ultimate benefit of science and patients.

FAIRification of high-dimensional biomarker data is particularly challenging due to the lack of universal standards and pipelines. Also, biomarker development is a fast evolving field, leaving biomarker data scientists no choice but to constantly adapt to emerging technologies and tools.

The Pistoia Alliance could host a pan-Pharma effort to share and provide scientific solutions to high-dimensional biomarker data FAIRification for patient data re-use. One component of the initiative could be to share existing solutions adopted by different companies for curation, standardization, visualization, etc.