Systems Biology for Infectious Diseases Research

Data Sharing Guiding Principles for the NIAID/DMID Systems Biology Program

1. The NIAID/DMID Systems Biology Program (SBP) is a group effort that relies and depends on a team-oriented approach to foster as many cross-disciplinary interactions as possible within each center and across all SBP centers as well as the broad scientific community.
2. Systems biology draws on the strengths of multiple investigators with expertise in specific scientific fields. In the spirit of the SBP program, NIAID encourages center-wide joint sharing and analysis of data. This can be accomplished in two ways:
   • Raw data can be made available to center investigators, including raw data where final analysis may not be complete. Thus any contract-generated data would be available to, and could be analyzed by, any contract member(s).
   • Where feasible and to maximize information content generated by each center, analyses of samples should be performed with multiple –omics platforms, versus a single profiling technology. As appropriate, multiple data analysis/modeling paradigms are encouraged to provide robust interpretations of results.
3. All data and other resources generated by a systems biology center are owned jointly by all members of the center. Private ownership of any data generated by a Center’s participating laboratory is contrary to the expectations of the NIAID SBP.
4. Although it is expected that different scientists may come to different conclusions when analyzing the same data, differences in individual philosophies related to data analysis, sharing and public release, and ultimately team oriented work should be harmonized with the objectives of the SBP.
5. Centers are encouraged to emphasize the team-oriented nature of investigations in publications supported by the SBP.
6. The annual SBWG and Program meeting is a time to share data and hypotheses in the spirit of the NIAID SBP. Presentations of preliminary data and hypothesis are encouraged.
7. By SBP contract requirement, research data, protocols and computational and statistical models must be made freely and publicly available to the scientific community through the centers’ websites or other public databases within four weeks of publication, or within one year of generation, whichever comes first.