A Standards Perspective on Genomic Data Reusability and Reproducibility

Ishi Keenum ¹ Scott Ashley Jackson ^2,3 Emiley Eloe-Fadrosh ⁴ Lynn M Schriml ^5*

• ¹ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan, United States
• ² Complex Microbial Systems Group, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, United States
• ³ Complex Microbial Systems Group, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, United States
• ⁴ Division of Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology, Berkeley Lab (DOE), Berkeley, California, United States
• ⁵ Institute for Genome Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Genomic and metagenomic sequence data provides an unprecedented ability to re-examine findings, offering a transformative potential for advancing research, developing computational tools, enhancing clinical applications, and fostering scientific collaboration. However, effective and ethical reuse of genomics data is hampered by numerous technical and social challenges. The International Microbiome and Multi'Omics Standards Alliance (IMMSA, https://www.microbialstandards.org/) and the Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC, https://gensc.org) hosted a 5-part seminar series "A Year of Data Reuse" in 2024 to explore challenges and opportunities of data reuse and reproducibility across disparate domains of the genomic sciences. Addressing these challenges will require a multifaceted approach, including common metadata reporting, clear communication, standardized protocols, improved data management infrastructure, ethical guidelines, and collaborative policies that prioritize transparency and accessibility. We offer strategies to enable responsible and technically feasible data reuse, recognition of data reproducibility challenges, and emphasizing the importance of crossdisciplinary efforts in the pursuit of open science and data-driven innovation.