Analysis commons, a team approach to discovery in a big-data environment for genetic epidemiology

The increasing volume of whole-genome sequence (WGS) and multi-omics data requires new approaches for analysis. As one solution, we have created the cloud-based Analysis Commons, which brings together genotype and phenotype data from multiple studies in a setting that is accessible by multiple investigators. This framework addresses many of the challenges of multicenter WGS analyses, including data-sharing mechanisms, phenotype harmonization, integrated multi-omics analyses, annotation and computational flexibility. In this setting, the computational pipeline facilitates a sequence-to-discovery analysis workflow illustrated here by an analysis of plasma fibrinogen levels in 3,996 individuals from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) WGS program. The Analysis Commons represents a novel model for translating WGS resources from a massive quantity of phenotypic and genomic data into knowledge of the determinants of health and disease risk in diverse human populations.