LOS ANGELES – Researchers at USC have launched an archive to compile data from studies throughout the world on COVID-19 that will allow scientists across the world to access their colleagues’ findings.
“We saw an urgent need for strategic data management arise as soon as COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic,” said Dominique Duncan, assistant professor of neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and principal investigator for the COVID-19 Data Archive (COVID-ARC).
“Our hope is that this project can also prepare us for the next pandemic,” Duncan added. “We’ll have the infrastructure in place to enable researchers to aggregate data and perform analysis right at the onset.”
The archive will store a range of data types, including the results of clinical evaluations, vital signs, demographic and geolocation information and imaging results, and will provide researchers with visualization, quality control and data-analysis tools to better manage and understand their findings, according to USC.
The database will be accessible to the public, but researchers may need to request access to restricted datasets and agree to credit data collectors once findings are published.
The effort is funded by a one-year, $252,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.
More information about the archive is available at covid-arc.loni.usc.edu.
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