Researchers from the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have created the National Microbiome Data Collaborative (NMDC) Data Portal.
The data portal provides ways to standardize and integrate microbiome data. By doing so, it accelerates researchers’ efforts to understand how microbiomes respond to and modify their environments and how they can be harnessed for sustainable bioenergy solutions.
As user facilities, EMSL (located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) and JGI (located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) share their resources with the scientific community through a competitive peer-reviewed process. The two facilities synergized their research capabilities by creating the Facilities Integrating Collaborations for User Science (FICUS) program. FICUS allows users to pursue a research project across multiple Department of Energy user facilities.