In a recent Nature Methods paper, scientists at Scripps Research describe a cloud-based data-analysis platform that facilitates mass spectrometry data analysis and sharing across different instruments and laboratories.
"This is really about data sharing and accelerating the process of discovery," says Gary Siuzdak, Ph.D., professor at Scripps Research and co-corresponding author of the XCMS/METLIN open data analysis platform. Siuzdak directs the Center for Metabolomics and Mass Spectrometry at Scripps, which specializes in using mass spectrometry to identify and quantify small molecules.
Tens of thousands of labs around the world generate data using mass spectrometry, so the platform could be useful outside medicine as well, say study first authors Xavier Domingo-Almenara, Ph.D., and J. Rafael Montenegro-Burke, Ph.D. Any field using mass spectrometry could benefit from these new resources, such as environmental sciences, pharmaceuticals, forensics, food control, and sports medicine, they add.
Siuzdak and his colleagues have long aimed to keep their research tools free and open to the public. Paul Benton, Ph.D., bioinformatics analyst and co-corresponding author of the study, explains that hosting their platform on the cloud allows anyone, from collaborators to patients, to check the validity of the mass spectrometry results. "In an age where scientific results are being constantly questioned, open data has become an essential part the discovery process," Benton says.
The idea of open data sharing has caught on in recent years. Since its launch in 2004, the XCMS/METLIN platform has grown to over 25,000 users, and the molecules in its data repository have leapt from 14,000 to 150,000 in just the last year, partly thanks to a collaboration with Calibr, a division of Scripps Research.