SAIL-a software system for sample and phenotype availability across biobanks and cohorts

Abstract

Summary: The Sample avAILability system-SAIL-is a web based application for searching, browsing and annotating biological sample collections or biobank entries. By providing individual-level information on the availability of specific data types (phenotypes, genetic or genomic data) and samples within a collection, rather than the actual measurement data, resource integration can be facilitated. A flexible data structure enables the collection owners to provide descriptive information on their samples using existing or custom vocabularies. Users can query for the available samples by various parameters combining them via logical expressions. The system can be scaled to hold data from millions of samples with thousands of variables. © The Author(s) 2010. Published by Oxford University Press.