Exploring Open Data: Going Public with Findings

Posted on June 28, 2016   by Microbiology Society

Open data has the potential to revolutionise microbial genomics. But in practice, many of the benefits of this technology remain untapped. So how can we achieve greater data sharing? Over the coming weeks, we’ll be featuring some highlights from a panel discussion on open data at the Annual Conference 2016.

 

This week, Dr Claire Jenkins from Public Health England shares her experiences of the release of over 10,000 genome sequences to date, and the needs of a government agency versus advantages to the scientific community when sharing data that is open to everyone.

Claire is a clinical scientist at the gastrointestinal bacterial reference unit at Public Health England, where they have been using whole genome sequencing for public health surveillance and outbreak detection and investigation since 2014.

This panel was hosted by the PHG Foundation. You can read more about their approach to open data and their model for data sharing here.

Dr Claire Jenkins is an Editor for Microbial Genomics, a new open access and open data journal published by the Microbiology Society. Find out more about the journal here.