An open-source platform for pediatric cancer data exploration: a report from Data for the Common Good

Abstract

Abstract Objective The Pediatric Cancer Data Commons (PCDC)—a project of Data for the Common Good—houses clinical pediatric oncology data and utilizes the open-source Gen3 platform. To meet the needs of end users, the PCDC development team expanded the out-of-box functionality and developed additional custom features that should be useful to any group developing similar data commons. Materials and Methods Modifications of the PCDC data portal software were implemented to facilitate desired functionality. Results Newly developed functionality includes updates to authorization methods, expansion of filtering capabilities, and addition of data analysis functions. Discussion We describe the process by which custom functionalities were developed. Features are open source and available to be implemented and adapted to suit needs of data portals that utilize the Gen3 platform. Conclusion Data portals are indispensable tools for facilitating data sharing. Open-source infrastructure facilitates a modular and collaborative approach for meeting needs of end users and stakeholders.