Overview
At DNAnexus, we are powering a connected ecosystem trusted by the world’s precision health leaders. We are making omics and real-world data accessible, actionable, and secure, so that scientists can unlock insights that improve patient lives.
That’s why the Mexico City Prospective Study, run by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, is so important to us. The largest population health research study of its kind in Mexico, it includes clinical and genomic data from more than 150,000 participants in the country — unique and much-needed coverage of a diverse and historically underrepresented group. DNAnexus is honored to host the study data and to provide access to approved researchers from Mexico and around the world, maximizing the utility of this valuable resource.
But when we’re this excited about hosting a data set, we know we can do even more with it. That’s why we were so eager to participate in a recent workshop to help a few dozen scientists and students in Mexico learn how to access and work with the biobank data. DNAnexus team members provided introductory training on our cloud platform, including how to use the web interface as well as the command-line interface, how to view data, and how to navigate the overall structure. We also presented a sampling of analytical tools and pipelines on our platform that can be used to work easily with data at the scale of hundreds of thousands of samples. The tutorial gave us a chance to work closely with workshop attendees, who were keen to dive into the biobank resource. Representatives from the University of Oxford, which helps the Mexico City team manage the data, were also on hand to help scientists learn to use an interactive app.
While we thoroughly enjoyed helping new users get up to speed on how to access the study data through the DNAnexus platform, we also got a special treat: a full-day symposium featuring talks from researchers who have already analyzed the data and gleaned important new insights. It was wonderful to see how much value scientists are already discovering in this unique data set as they analyze it with our platform.
One of our favorite things about the Mexico City Prospective Study is how it’s engaging scientists in Mexico to work with this data and to team up with collaborators across the globe, extending its usefulness well beyond the country of origin. Collaboration is one of the core values of the DNAnexus platform; we purposely built it in the cloud to streamline access from anywhere in the world, with appropriate permissions and controls to ensure security. We heard from a lot of workshop participants who were enthusiastic about the ability to share data, results, and tools with their collaborators through the DNAnexus interface.
Best of all, anyone who learns to use our platform to access the Mexico City biobank data can use that same approach to access any of the other biobanks we host, such as the UK Biobank, Our Future Health, and the China Kadoorie Biobank (access approval may be needed in some cases from the project owners). This allows users to take findings from one resource and test them again in another cohort, replicating analyses to validate biological differences across populations.
If you weren’t at the Mexico City study workshop, don’t worry — the DNAnexus team is always here to help! We pride ourselves on delivering educational tools and one-on-one support to anyone who needs an assist with our platform.
