SATORI: a system for ontology-guided visual exploration of biomedical data repositories

The ever-increasing number of biomedical data sets provides tremendous opportunities for re-use across multiple studies. In some cases individual published data sets can be used to test a hypothesis instead of generating new data. Alternatively, data from previous studies can be employed as corroborating evidence for observations made in an experiment. Meta studies that include data from dozens or hundreds of published data sets are another frequent use case for the re-purposing of previously generated data. Current data repositories, however, provide limited means of exploration apart from text-based search. Ontological metadata annotations provide context by semantically relating data sets. Visualizing this rich network of relationships can improve the explorability of large data repositories and help researchers find data sets of interest and make biomedical data findable – the first guiding principle for FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) research data. To address the needs for precise search and exploration, we propose a system that is based on free text and ontologically-annotated metadata and consists of two highly interlinked interfaces: a powerful text-based search and a visual analytics exploration tool. We have designed and implemented SATORI – an integrative search and exploration interface for the exploration of biomedical data repositories. Our tool enables researchers to seamlessly browse and semantically query ontologically annotated repositories via two visualizations that are highly interconnected with a powerful search interface. SATORI is integrated into the Refinery Platform which is open-sourced and freely available at http://refinery-platform.org . Additional information about SATORI is available at http://satori.refinery-platform.org