Big data: Astronomical or genomical?

Zachary D. Stephens; Skylar Y. Lee; Faraz Faghri; Roy H. Campbell; Chengxiang Zhai; Miles J. Efron; Ravishankar Iyer; Michael C. Schatz; Saurabh Sinha; Gene E. Robinson

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002195

Big data: Astronomical or genomical?

Zachary D. Stephens, Skylar Y. Lee, Faraz Faghri, Roy H. Campbell, Chengxiang Zhai, Miles J. Efron, Ravishankar Iyer, Michael C. Schatz, Saurabh Sinha, Gene E. Robinson

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Genomics is a Big Data science and is going to get much bigger, very soon, but it is not known whether the needs of genomics will exceed other Big Data domains. Projecting to the year 2025, we compared genomics with three other major generators of Big Data: astronomy, YouTube, and Twitter. Our estimates show that genomics is a “four-headed beast”—it is either on par with or the most demanding of the domains analyzed here in terms of data acquisition, storage, distribution, and analysis. We discuss aspects of new technologies that will need to be developed to rise up and meet the computational challenges that genomics poses for the near future. Now is the time for concerted, communitywide planning for the “genomical” challenges of the next decade.

Original language	English (US)
Journal	PLoS biology
Volume	13
Issue number	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002195
State	Published - 2015

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Neuroscience
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
General Immunology and Microbiology
General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

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10.1371/journal.pbio.1002195

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AU - Zhai, Chengxiang

AU - Efron, Miles J.

AU - Iyer, Ravishankar

AU - Schatz, Michael C.

AU - Sinha, Saurabh

AU - Robinson, Gene E.

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Big data: Astronomical or genomical?

Abstract

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