The LINCS Data and Signature Generation Centers produce a variety of data for the library. For such data to be standardized, integrated, and coordinated in a manner that promotes consistency and allows comparison across different cell types, assays and conditions, the BD2K-LINCS DCIC together with the DSGCs develop and employ data standards.
Once collected, LINCS data is made available to the research community in various formats so that it can be used in different types of analyses.
The data standards page describes the data structures that are being developed by the LINCS Data Working Group.
The LINCS project embraces and aims to further develop the concept of data levels for results from the various assays employed within the LINCS consortia. During the first phase of the LINCS project the Broad and HMS teams defined data-levels for the results produced by the several assays they employed. The concept of data levels is also borrowed from the success of this approach by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project. Definitions for data levels for all the LINCS assays are currently being developed by the BD2K-LINCS DCIC and the LINCS DSGCs and will be posted here soon.
The TCGA data-level definitions can be found here.