2024 Gen3 Development Roadmap

We had a great Gen3 Community Forum where Director Robert Grossman outlined the Gen3 Data Commons roadmap highlighting key projects. The forum also featured an insightful discussion led by the Gen3 Steering Committee, with Plamen Martinov, Chief Information Technology and Security Officer at OCC, sharing perspectives on features the Gen3 Community is working on and collectively working through a new and improved model for collaboration and co-development. 

The session was a dynamic engagement with the Gen3 Community, and we are enthusiastic about the collective efforts to advance research at the Open Commons Consortium, in partnership with the Center for Translational Data Science, leveraging the robust Gen3 Community.

The recorded session video is available to access, offering valuable insights from the event.

Join Us At Super Compute 2023

We're pleased to announce our attendance at SuperComputing 2023. The Open Commons Consortium will be there with our partner, CTDS, at the University of Chicago to showcase expertise in setting up and managing Gen3 Data Commons and Data Mesh platforms for research. Learn more about OCC services and the latest contributions in advancing scientific research & driving social impact.

Join us at SC2023 and be part of a transformative experience. Stay tuned for more updates, exciting insights, and opportunities to connect with us. See you there! 

Security and Compliance in Gen3 Data Commons

Gen3 facilitates secure and compliant data sharing and analysis for researchers worldwide.

Understanding security and compliance can be a complex subject, which is why we had an event on September 6th in collaboration with our partner, the Center of Translational Data Science at the University of Chicago. This event emphasized security best practices and insights from other Gen3 operators, including the Open Commons Consortium, Krumware, Australian BioCommons, and NeSI, who shared their experiences in setting up and maintaining Gen3 Data Commons and Data Meshes with a security-centric approach.

A brief overview of the topics covered by our esteemed presenters and partners:

  1.  A Project Owner’s Perspective on Security & Compliance for Gen3 Data Commons Presented by Robert Grossman, Professor and Director at the Center for Translational Data Science, University of Chicago.

  2. Security & Compliance Practices at CTDS Presented by Clint Malson, Director of Security Operations at the Center for Translational Data Science, University of Chicago.

  3. Security Practices for Gen3 & Its Applications Presented by Plamen Martinov, Chief Technology Officer of the Open Commons Consortium.

  4. Securing Cloud-Native & Kubernetes Environments Presented by Colin Griffin, Founder and Chief Engineer at Krumware.

You can access the recorded session video and PDF slides to catch up on the valuable insights from the event.

OCC team will build up B3 Virtual Biobank Data Commons collaboratively with Rush & Loyola

The Walder foundation Boosters, Breakthroughs, and Biorepositories (B3) grant seeks to exemplify multi-university collaboration and biorepository synergy. As part of the grant, Open Commons Consortium (OCC) is working with Rush and Loyola Medical Center to set up a Virtual Biobank Data Commons. The purpose of the commons is to manage virtual biobank sample metadata between Rush and Loyola Medical Center & this project is led by Jeffrey Schneider. This infrastructure will use Gen3 Platform services, specifically the metadata service (i.e., Discovery Portal).

The initial workstream in 2023-2024 determines the feasibility of operating a stand-alone Data Commons, including a Proof Of Concept prototype using the Chicagoland Region Data Commons Discovery Portal in the Quality Assurance (QA) environment. The secondary workstream in 2024-2025 is to build a standalone Virtual Biobank Data Commons and open it to other investigators either as people seeking samples/collaboration or as partners wishing to merge their biorepository data with the Joint Loyola-Rush Biorepository.

Case study published by Burwood Group : OCC is Democratizing Scientific Research on Google Cloud

The dream held by OCC is to provide the researchers with the data and resources they need to find the answers to the most formidable problems they seek to solve. To make this dream into reality - OCC, Burwood, and Google Cloud accomplished together the result of hard work that made it easy for first time users, students and researchers to access data for continuous research by implementing Gen3 Workspaces on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This accelerated the adoption and use of the Gen3 data platform, used by researchers internally to accelerate and democratize the process of scientific discovery, especially over large or complex datasets.

To know more about it, please click here: https://rb.gy/ia1ti

Open Commons Consortium Product Launch

We are delighted to announce the product “Direct Pay" which enables use of pay for compute services for furthering scientific research using a direct payment method on the Gen3  Biomedical Research Hub (BRH).  This is a joint initiative with the University of Chicago, Center for Translational Data Science and AWS Pro Services, DDI initiative to enable the functionality of Direct Pay to BRH, allowing additional payment methods for the use of data mashes and data commons for social impact.

Ten lessons with Data sharing with Data commons

It’s been over a decade that we are working to support and accelerate scientific research by building data commons with the means to share and analyze large data sets in a secure and compliant environment. Director, Robert Grossman discusses lessons learned from this experience & benefits of Data Commons. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-023-02029-x 

Publication on Contrived Materials in Liquid Biopsy validation from BLOODPAC

The newest BLOODPAC publication is out. This study sheds new light on how contrived materials—commercially available stand-ins for patient samples—can help streamline the testing and validation of liquid biopsy assays. One step closer to improving outcomes for patients with cancer https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1525157822003646