The Life Cycle of Structural Biology Data

Chris Morris

doi:10.5334/dsj-2018-026

The Life Cycle of Structural Biology Data

Authors

Chris Morris STFC, Daresbury Laboratory, WA4 4AD https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9533-5684

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2018-026

Keywords:

Structural biology, virtual research environment, data life cycle, open access, open science

Abstract

Research data is acquired, interpreted, published, reused, and sometimes eventually discarded. Understanding this life cycle better will help the development of appropriate infrastructural services, ones which make it easier for researchers to preserve, share, and find data.

Structural biology is a discipline within the life sciences, one that investigates the molecular basis of life by discovering and interpreting the shapes and motions of macromolecules. Structural biology has a strong tradition of data sharing, expressed by the founding of the Protein Data Bank (PDB) in 1971. The culture of structural biology is therefore already in line with the perspective that data from publicly funded research projects are public data.

This review is based on the data life cycle as defined by the UK Data Archive. It identifies six stages: creating data, processing data, analysing data, preserving data, giving access to data, and re-using data. For clarity, ʻpreserving dataʼ and ʻgiving access to dataʼ are discussed together. A final stage to the life cycle, ʻdiscarding dataʼ, is also discussed.

The review concludes with recommendations for future improvements to the IT infrastructure for structural biology.

Author Biography

Chris Morris, STFC, Daresbury Laboratory, WA4 4AD

Chris Morris is a data analyst and software project manager at the Daresbury Laboratory, STFC. He is the project manager for West-Life, a Horizon 2020 project developing a Virtual Research Environment for structural biology. He is also involved in ADDoPT, an Innovate UK grant to support the design of pharmaceutical dosage forms. He has been a software developer for twenty five years. He says ‘Eventually I realised that the coding is not the hardest part of the job’.

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Published

2018-10-12

Issue

Vol. 17 (2018)

Section

Practice Papers

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