Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Comment
  • Published:

The National Microbiome Data Collaborative: enabling microbiome science

Subjects

To harness the potential of microbiome science across the broad range of relevant disciplines, new approaches to data infrastructure and transdisciplinary collaboration are necessary. The National Microbiome Data Collaborative (NMDC) is a new initiative to support microbiome data exploration and discovery through a collaborative, integrative data science ecosystem.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Wilkinson, M. D. et al. The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Sci. Data 3, 160018 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Alivisatos, A. P. et al. A unified initiative to harness Earth’s microbiomes. Science 350, 507–508 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Dubilier, N., McFall-Ngai, M. & Zhao, L. Microbiology: create a global microbiome effort. Nature 526, 631–634 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information. Interagency Strategic Plan for Microbiome Research, FY 2018-2022, https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1471707-interagency-strategic-plan-microbiome-research-fy (2018).

  5. Buttigieg, P. L. et al. The environment ontology in 2016: bridging domains with increased scope, semantic density, and interoperation. J. Biomed. Semantics 7, 57 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Yilmaz, P. et al. Minimum information about a marker gene sequence (MIMARKS) and minimum information about any (x) sequence (MIxS) specifications. Nat. Biotech. 29, 415–420 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Mukherjee, S. et al. Genomes OnLine database (GOLD) v.7: updates and new features. Nucleic Acids Res. 47, D649–d659 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Stulberg, E. et al. An assessment of US microbiome research. Nat. Microbiol. 1, 15015 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Proctor, L. et al. A review of 10 years of human microbiome research activities at the US National Institutes of Health, Fiscal Years 2007-2016. Microbiome 7, 31 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Pylro, V. S. et al. Brazilian Microbiome Project: revealing the unexplored microbial diversity — challenges and prospects. Microb. Ecol. 67, 237–241 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Emiley A. Eloe-Fadrosh.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Related links

Australian Microbiome Initiative: www.australianmicrobiome.com

Brazilian Microbiome Project: www.brmicrobiome.org

Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement: https://www.cscce.org

EMSL: https://search.emsl.pnnl.gov

FAIR Microbiome Implementation Network: https://www.go-fair.org/implementation-networks/overview/fair-microbiome

GOLD: https://gold.jgi.doe.gov

Metagenome workflows: https://github.com/microbiomedata/WorkflowPlanning

National Microbiome Data Collaborative: https://microbiomedata.org

NMDC Champion programme: https://microbiomedata.org/nmdc-champions

NMDC Code of Conduct: https://microbiomedata.org/nmdc-code-of-conduct

NMDC metadata schema: https://github.com/microbiomedata/nmdc-metadata

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wood-Charlson, E.M., Anubhav, Auberry, D. et al. The National Microbiome Data Collaborative: enabling microbiome science. Nat Rev Microbiol 18, 313–314 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-020-0377-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-020-0377-0

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing