CGR overview
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Comparative Genomics Resource (CGR) is a multi-year National Library of Medicine (NLM) project to maximize the impact of eukaryotic research organisms and their genomic data resources to biomedical research. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), as part of NLM, is charged with leading development and engaging genomics communities. The CGR project will facilitate reliable comparative genomics analyses for all eukaryotic organisms in collaboration with the genomics community.
Feedback from the genomics community will inform improvements made to existing NCBI data, tools, and interfaces and new developments in these areas. Additionally, to further scientific discovery, this project seeks to enhance NLM/NCBI-held genomic related content with community-supplied content, such as sample metadata and gene functional information, from other data resources and individual researchers.
Get involved
Community participation is integral to CGR. Email us to join you at a conference, teach a workshop, partner on a webinar, or discuss other ideas you may have to foster information sharing and feedback.
Benefits
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High-Quality Genomic Data: Newly accessible and improved NCBI tools will provide the genomics community with a core foundation of uncontaminated and consistently annotated eukaryotic genomes.
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New and Improved Comparative Genomics Tools: NCBI will improve existing tools and develop new ones to improve and simplify comparative analyses. These tools provide researchers with a seamless experience to explore, analyze, and retrieve eukaryotic genome-related content.
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Scalable Analyses: NCBI is developing content and tools to support emerging big data approaches to comparative genomics analyses, such as facilitating the creation of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-ready datasets and cloud-ready tools. This will meet new research needs and accommodate anticipated data growth. CGR also emphasizes the application of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles. FAIR principles make it easier to search, browse, download, and use NCBI genome-associated data with a range of standard bioinformatics platforms and tools.
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New Discovery Amplification: CGR will amplify opportunities for researchers to make new discoveries from comparative genomic analysis. NCBI’s toolkit provides organism-agnostic tools that offer equal access to datasets across the eukaryotic tree of life. These expose biological information and reveal patterns in the data that can spur new hypotheses for future research. Additionally, with standardized interfaces, CGR can connect NCBI’s toolkit with communities that currently have or wish to develop their own organism-specific resources. The exposure of these data to more researchers can amplify its use and contribute to new discoveries.
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Scientific Advancement: Put together, by maximizing the impact of eukaryotic research organisms and their genomic data resources to biomedical research, CGR offers new possibilities for scientific advancement.
Timeline
CGR advisory boards
CGR has two advisory boards that are essential to CGR’s success and development.
NLM Board of Regents CGR working group (BoR WG)
BoR WG members are external to NIH and are leaders in various biological fields dependent on genomic data. They provide diverse perspectives and extensive expertise to guide the development of this new approach to scientific discovery, help project teams keep pace with changes in the field, and understand the scientific community’s needs and expectations for key functionalities.
CGR Executive Steering Committee (ESC)
The ESC provides NIH oversight to the CGR project includes representatives from NIH institutes and centers most related to comparative genomics. Members ensure CGR remains within scope and budget while meeting planned milestones.