The Big Data for Immunology Sub-committee (BDI-SC) will hold a 90-minute symposium at IUIS’s 2023 Immunology Congress on the creation and implementation of shared metadata standards across multiple “big data” types that are relevant to immunologists.

Symposium Title:
A roadmap for the implementation of universal standards for big immunology data

Objectives:
There is a need for the universal acceptance of standards for big data relevant to both clinical and experimental immunology; however, the way forward is unclear. Using three types of widely used big data as examples, this symposium is designed to:

• Describe the need for universal standards,
• Describe the problems encountered in implementing them, and
• Propose an IUIS-wide approval process meant to provide the broad mandate needed for universal acceptance by government institutions, journals and other entities.

Speakers and Topics:

• Christian Busse (University of Heidelberg, Germany): An introduction on the promise of and problems with sharing of “big data in immunology” and the need for universal standards; and, especially, the need for a clear mandate for this from the immunology community.
• Presentations by experts on metadata standards for three data types for which the BDI-SC is currently working. The speakers from these three fields will address the importance of each data type to the field of immunology, the metadata standards currently in place (or under development) and obstacles to their universal acceptance:

o Ryan Brinkman (University of British Columbia, Canada): Flow/mass cytometry data,
o TBD: Single-cell and bulk RNA-sequencing data
o Nina Luning Prak (University of Pennsylvania, USA): Adaptive immune receptor (immunoglobulin & T-cell receptor) repertoire sequencing data.

• Helder Nakaya (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil) will announce awards for immunology research groups that re-use publicly available big data to a high degree and standard.
• Jamie Scott (Simon Fraser University, Canada): Panel discussion with the audience on “moving forward”, including how participation from IUIS’s member societies could support the creation of a mandate for international acceptance of metadata standards by governments, journals and other institutions.

This symposium will comprise a mixture of science, technology and policy. It is designed to stimulate discussion on how IUIS is uniquely positioned, through the strength of its member societies, to create a broad mandate for the universal acceptance of standards, in this case, metadata standards for big data that immunologists generate and use.

Thus, we especially encourage members of IUIS’s Council and General Assembly to attend this symposium and participate in the discussion.

Christian Busse and Jamie Scott
Co-Chairs

Felix Breden, Dharshan De Silva, Helder Nakaya and Bjoern Peters
Members
BDI-SC