A warehouse for radiobiological data
Legacy data from radiation biology studies conducted between the 1950s and 1990s are invaluable as similar work could not be repeated due to ethical and financial restrictions. Knowing this, the radiobiology community has set up the International Radiobiological Archives for storing information on previous studies. Recent technical advancements would enable the garnering of more information from older studies to provide more insight. Additionally, it would minimise animal experimentation by preventing the repetition of experiments that have already been conducted. Funded by the EU, the 'Sustaining access to tissues and data from radiobiological experiments' (STORE) project set-up an electronic database. This would collect data from radiobiological archives and incorporate data from past, current and future radiobiological studies. This database also has the ability to act as a directory to collections of tissue samples or include whole histopathology slide scans as a virtual archive. It would be made available only to certain co-workers and not to the general public. Besides the database, the STORE consortium created standard operating protocols (SOPs) for preserving samples for future use and for storing experimental information. Methods for extracting DNA and RNA from stored material were verified, alongside protocols for determining their quality and suitability for downstream applications. All SOPs were made available in electronic format on the project website. With its upcoming Horizon 2020 programme, the EU strongly supports collaborative efforts across scientific fields and nationalities. Such cooperation will greatly benefit from international efforts to preserve and share scientific information. Finally, to maximise financial and scientific sustainability, it is vital to generate resources and data archives similar to the one created by the STORE initiative.
Keywords
Data sharing, radiobiology experiment, standard operating protocols
