NEWYORK (GenomeWeb) – The International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) has selected Annai Systems to host data from more than 10,000 human cancer genomes generated by ICGC projects.
The ICGC data will be made available on Annai Systems' cloud-based ShareSeq platform. It will soon include an additional feature that will allow researchers to combine and analyze their own data with other datasets and with the ICGC data.
According to the ICGC, the arrangement eases technical barriers to accessing and using ICGC data. Researchers can currently access interpreted, annotated results from the ICGC Data Portal, but to make new discoveries with the genomic information they need to download the raw data, a process that can take months and requires large quantities of compute. With Annai's ShareSeq, researchers have access to the data in an environment that includes integrated storage for private data, search and retrieval capabilities, high-performance computing, flexible analysis workflows, and more. These added capabilities are available via subscription or on a pay-for-use basis.
"By hosting our data on the ShareSeq platform we will eliminate many of the limitations to working with datasets this large," according to Lincoln Stein, program director of Ontario Institute for Cancer Research's Informatics and Bio-computing program and director of the ICGC's Data Coordination Center. "What this really does is liberate the data and allows researchers at institutions large and small to add to our collective understanding of cancer at the genomic level and move the science forward."
Earlier this year, Annai announced a partnership with the OICR and the ICGC to provide its Annai GNOS data management software to six centers that house data for the ICGC's Pan Cancer Project.