ASM Microbiome Data Prize

The immense growth of microbiome data has brought a new era of data-driven exploration and hypothesis generation enabled by a rapidly growing suite of transformative data science strategies. To support microbiome data science, the National Microbiome Data Collaborative (NMDC), led by Berkeley Lab, has coordinated with the American Academy of Microbiology, the honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), to launch the new Microbiome Data Prize as part of the ASM Award Program. “This new award elevates the importance of data stewardship for microbiome research, and underscores the role of data science in the advancement of the microbiome sciences,” noted Emiley Eloe-Fadrosh, lead of the NMDC. 

The Microbiome Data Prize aims to recognize distinguished achievements to support open data practices, development of standards and processes for data quality and sharing, and data workflows and management best practices that have advanced the microbial sciences. The Microbiome Data Prize encompasses significant contributions towards the many facets of the microbiome data lifecycle, including:

• Development and ongoing support for data standards, ontologies, and technological advances to support collection, description, and distribution of microbiome data
• Establishing and maintaining open-source scientific software in support of microbiome data processing or analysis that supports best practices in the field
• Advancing data management systems, repositories, or knowledgebases to support access and distribution of microbiome data
• Championing data stewardship through teaching, training, mentorship, or other engagement activities to substantially support microbiome data science  

Learn more about the NMDC efforts toward making microbiome data FAIR: linking metadata standards, developing bioinformatic workflows, enabling data discovery, and engaging with the research community.