Introduction to FAIR principles about data, metadata and protocols in metabolomics

In 2016, a consortium of scientists (cheminformaticians, bioinformaticians, biologists, data scientists, computer scientists and representatives from data archives and publishers congregated) with the intention to provide guidelines to improve the findability , accessibility , interoperability and reusability of the digital assets, published the ‘FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship’(Wilkinson et al., 2016). FAIR Guidelines are based on 15 Principles divided in 4 categories and cover Data, Metadata and Protocols. Fondazione Edmund Mach (FEM) has a long experience in food, grape and wine metabolomics, while over the last years it’s Metabolomic platform shared several data using public repositories. This presentation will discuss FEM experiences, by reporting the workflow and the tools used from the experimental design to the data sharing, in order to respect the FAIR guidelines. In detail, will be discussed: a) the meta-data collection and organization; b) the instrumental parameters and set ups; c) the various protocol needed; d) the ontologies; e) the metabolites ID; f) the informatic tools; and g) the repositories. Reference: Wilkinson et al. The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Scientific Data, 3, 160018 (2016).