Repositive adds microbiome data into data catalog

Microbiome data is now part of Repositive’s Specialised Data Collections and offers researchers 21,000 data sets from human metagenomic studies.

The data, according to a company blog post, was derived from several sources including GigaDB, Human Microbiome Project and dbGaP and also includes data from the Personal Genome Project and personal collections including The Corpasome.

The addition “significantly” expands the software toolmaker’s collections, which includes PDX data, expression, methylation and Chinese control data, which were developed in the company’s quest to provide data scientists easy and quick access to genomic research data.

“A better understanding of the microbiome could have a major impact on improving human health,” states Repositive CEO Fiona Nielsen, in the blog post. “In turn, this has resulted in a significant increase in the need for specialised data, as interest in this area and its applications has grown. Through ongoing communication with our growing community of users we were able to identify microbiome data as an area that would benefit from becoming one of our Specialised data collections.”

The data expansion comes shortly after new seed funding and a partnership with AstraZeneca and Xpressomics. The blog post notes the company is also expanding its staffing and debuted an updated version of its free platform.

As FierceBiotech reported, the company debuted the first full version of its online genomics data platform late this summer, offering access to 992,000 data sets, 23 times as many as were available previously.

Repositive, in the blog post, states it plans to continue its data set expansion next year with personal genomics on the list.