BioCommons ‘Bring Your Own Data’ Expansion Project

Note: This project was completed in 2023. Work is ongoing in the BioCLI and Workflow Commons projects.


This ARDC and BioCommons sponsored project is delivering a key component of BioCommon’s vision for an ecosystem of data analysis and digital asset stewardship platforms.

Project timeline: July 2020 to December 2023

Web based bioinformatics workbenches

Online access to best-practice life science tools, workflows, data and training, underpinned by compute and storage that we manage for you.

Project achievements

  • Established the Australian Alphafold Service allowing AI prediction of a protein’s 3D structure from its amino acid sequence

  • Expanded Galaxy Australia’s capacity and capability

  • Job scheduling to the most appropriate compute resources based on criteria like system load, available memory, user identity, and the type of job being run

  • Established Galaxy Australia’s Training Infrastructure as a Service allowing instructors to apply for dedicated training capacity and monitor the status of trainees’ jobs

  • Established the Galaxy Australia Genome Lab: a user-friendly view of Galaxy Australia providing rapid access to sophisticated genome assembly and annotation resources

Command line for life scientists

Community curated life science workflows, tools, training and support across Australian command line infrastructures.

Project achievements

Data infrastructure for life scientists

Making it easier for life scientists to access, analyse, visualise and share data coming from data generating facilities, or generated by research consortia.

Project achievements

  • Deployment of Vertebrates Genome Project assembly workflows in Galaxy Australia

  • Methods and tools deployed for analysing and visualising new omics data types, including:

    • Tandem mass tag proteomics data in collaboration with Monash proteomics

    • Single cell data via Galaxy Australia workflows and a How-to Guide developed by Griffith University’s Central Facility for Genomics

    • Shotgun metagenomics data analysis via Galaxy Australia workflows and a How-to-Guide, adapted by Griffith University’s Central Facility for Genomics from a Galaxy Training Network tutorial

The Australian BioCommons BYOD Expansion Project was funded through NCRIS investments from
Bioplatforms Australia
and the Australian Research Data Commons (http://doi.org/10.47486/PL105)
that were matched by co-investments from
AARNet, Melbourne Bioinformatics, NCI, Pawsey,
QCIF
via the Queensland Government RICF fund, The University of Sydney, AGRF, Griffith University and Monash University. 


Project partners