CollectionLocator Level 1: Metadata-Based Search for Collections in Federated Biobanks

TL;DR

CollectionLocator is a metadata-based tool designed to improve the findability and FAIR compliance of biobank data by enabling researchers to identify relevant collections without accessing sensitive detailed sample data.

Contribution

It introduces an ontology-based metadata model and a privacy-preserving search tool for biobanks, enhancing data discoverability and quality matching.

Findings

Proof-of-concept implementation demonstrates feasibility.

Supports privacy-preserving collection discovery.

Improves FAIR compliance of biobank data.

Abstract

Biobanks are indispensable resources for medical research collecting biological material and associated data and making them available for research projects and medical studies. For that, the biobank data has to meet certain criteria which can be formulated as adherence to the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) principles. We developed a tool, CollectionLocator, which aims at increasing the FAIR compliance of biobank data by supporting researchers in identifying which biobank and which collection are likely to contain cases (material and data) satisfying the requirements of a defined research project when the detailed sample data is not available due to privacy restrictions. The CollectionLocator is based on an ontology-based metadata model to address the enormous heterogeneities and ensure the privacy of the donors of the biological samples and the data. Furthermore, the CollectionLocator represents the data and metadata quality of the collections such that the quality requirements of the requester can be matched with the quality of the available data. The concept of CollectionLocator is evaluated with a proof-of-concept implementation.