TrackFind

TrackFind indexes and curates genomic annotation track metadata to enable FAIR-compliant discovery, integration, and reuse of genomic tracks from sources such as the TrackHub Registry, BLUEPRINT, and ENCODE.

Key Features:

• Crawling Capabilities: Crawls the TrackHub Registry and other genomic data portals to fetch track metadata from large-scale projects including BLUEPRINT and ENCODE.
• Search Capabilities: Provides hierarchical and advanced SQL-based search over crawled track metadata for precise queries.
• Data Export Options: Exports search results and metadata in JSON and GSuite-compatible formats.
• RESTful API Integration: Offers a RESTful API for programmatic access, demonstrated by integrations with GSuite HyperBrowser and EPICO.
• FAIRification Support: Transforms metadata into a FAIR-compliant model via online per-TrackHub scripting in alignment with the Elixir Implementation Study: “FAIRification of Genomic Tracks.”
• Version History Maintenance: Maintains a comprehensive version history of metadata changes, including re-crawlings and transformations.
• Curation Enhancements (planned): Plans to add features for curating existing track metadata content to improve metadata quality and consistency.

Scientific Applications:

• Genomic track discovery and integration: Enables discovery and aggregation of genomic annotation tracks across registries and portals for downstream analyses.
• Metadata FAIRification and standardization: Supports conversion of diverse track metadata into FAIR-compliant representations as part of the Elixir Implementation Study.
• Programmatic downstream analysis: Facilitates integration with analysis tools and workflows via JSON/GSuite exports and a RESTful API, exemplified by GSuite HyperBrowser and EPICO integrations.
• Provenance and reproducibility: Preserves version history of metadata changes and re-crawl events to support traceability in genomic data management.

Methodology:

Crawling of the TrackHub Registry and other genomic data portals to fetch track metadata; hierarchical and SQL-based search over crawled metadata; export in JSON and GSuite-compatible formats; RESTful API for programmatic access and integrations (GSuite HyperBrowser, EPICO); online per-TrackHub scripting to transform metadata into a FAIR-compliant model; maintenance of comprehensive version history including re-crawlings and transformations.