Sharing Data from the Human Tumor Atlas Network through Standards, Infrastructure, and Community Engagement.

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Bioinformatics
• Data Science

Background:

• The Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) aims to create comprehensive atlases of human tumors.
• Effective data sharing and utilization are critical for advancing cancer research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the infrastructure and strategies employed by the HTAN Data Coordinating Center (DCC) for data dissemination.
• To announce the public availability of HTAN's first phase of data.

Main Methods:

• Leveraging the Synapse platform for data ingestion and dissemination.
• Establishing data standards and governance for complex cancer data.
• Developing multiple access routes including portals, visualization tools, and cloud platforms.

Main Results:

• Publicly available datasets and diverse modalities from the first phase of HTAN.
• Accessible data via the HTAN Portal, CellxGene, Minerva, cBioPortal, and NCI Cancer Research Data Commons.
• A streamlined infrastructure for coordinating, standardizing, and disseminating cancer research data.

Conclusions:

• The HTAN DCC provides a successful model for managing and sharing large-scale cancer research data.
• The disseminated data and infrastructure offer valuable resources for the scientific community and similar consortia.
• This approach supports the broader utilization of cancer data for research and discovery.