NCI's Proteomic Data Commons: A Cloud-Based Proteomics Repository Empowering Comprehensive Cancer Analysis through Cross-Referencing with Genomic and Imaging Data.

Proteomics has emerged as a powerful tool for studying cancer biology, developing diagnostics, and therapies. With the continuous improvement and widespread availability of high-throughput proteomic technologies, the generation of large-scale proteomic data has become more common in cancer research, and there is a growing need for resources that support the sharing and integration of multi-omics datasets. Such datasets require extensive metadata including clinical, biospecimen, and experimental and workflow annotations that are crucial for data interpretation and reanalysis. The need to integrate, analyze, and share these data has led to the development of NCI's Proteomic Data Commons (PDC), accessible at https://pdc.cancer.gov. As a specialized repository within the NCI Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC), PDC enables researchers to locate and analyze proteomic data from various cancer types and connect with genomic and imaging data available for the same samples in other CRDC nodes. Presently, PDC houses annotated data from more than 160 datasets across 19 cancer types, generated by several large-scale cancer research programs with cohort sizes exceeding 100 samples (tumor and associated normal when available). In this article, we review the current state of PDC in cancer research, discuss the opportunities and challenges associated with data sharing in proteomics, and propose future directions for the resource. SIGNIFICANCE: The Proteomic Data Commons (PDC) plays a crucial role in advancing cancer research by providing a centralized repository of high-quality cancer proteomic data, enriched with extensive clinical annotations. By integrating and cross-referencing with complementary genomic and imaging data, the PDC facilitates multi-omics analyses, driving comprehensive insights, and accelerating discoveries across various cancer types.

NCI Cancer Research Data Commons: Resources to Share Key Cancer Data.

Since 2014, the NCI has launched a series of data commons as part of the Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC) ecosystem housing genomic, proteomic, imaging, and clinical data to support cancer research and promote data sharing of NCI-funded studies. This review describes each data commons (Genomic Data Commons, Proteomic Data Commons, Integrated Canine Data Commons, Cancer Data Service, Imaging Data Commons, and Clinical and Translational Data Commons), including their unique and shared features, accomplishments, and challenges. Also discussed is how the CRDC data commons implement Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR) principles and promote data sharing in support of the new NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy. See related articles by Brady et al., p. 1384, Pot et al., p. 1396, and Kim et al., p. 1404.