An increase in publicly available biomedical datasets is reshaping the future of health research, fueling scientific discovery and innovation. But this wealth of data also presents challenges—particularly when it comes to locating, accessing, and using available datasets across different platforms. Finding solutions to streamline access and usability remains crucial for maximizing the potential of biomedical data to the scientific community.

Researchers supported by the NIH Common Fund Data Ecosystem (CFDE) developed a user-friendly web-based interactive platform, Playbook Workflow Builder, to help address this need. The Playbook Workflow Builder, like a sports playbook, provides researchers with step-by-step instructions, strategies, and guidance to tackle important research questions. The platform accomplishes this by connecting a growing system of biomedical tools, resources, and databases, including multiple NIH Common Fund datasets, through a visual card click-and-play environment. This allows users to construct a step-by-step plan, or workflow, for analyzing bioinformatic data. By capturing analysis steps and citation details throughout each workflow, the platform promotes transparency and reproducibility, empowering researchers to build upon each other’s work.

The NIH-supported researchers provide several use cases to illustrate how the Playbook Workflow Builder can help scientists further biomedical discovery, from identifying potential treatment options for cancer patients to exploring negative drug interactions. The researchers used previously implemented workflows, or published playbooks, as a foundation for their own work.

While the Playbook Workflow Builder offers an interactive platform for researchers to access multiple datasets, the tool does not allow for the use of protected private data, such as patient information. In the future, the research team aims to enhance the platform’s features based on user feedback. With its user-friendly design, Playbook Workflow Builder is a promising tool that empowers researchers, especially those without coding experience, to effectively engage with multiple biomedical datasets.

Reference: Clarke DJB, Evangelista JE, Xie Z, Marino GB, Byrd AI, Maurya MR, Srinivasan S, Yu K, Petrosyan V, Roth ME, Milinkov M, King CH, Vora JK, Keeney J, Nemarich C, Khan W, Lachmann A, Ahmed N, Agris A, Pan J, Ramachandran S, Fahy E, Esquivel E, Mihajlovic A, Jevtic B, Milinovic V, Kim S, McNeely P, Wang T, Wenger E, Brown MA, Sickler A, Zhu Y, Jenkins SL, Blood PD, Taylor DM, Resnick AC, Mazumder R, Milosavljevic A, Subramaniam S, Ma'ayan A. Playbook workflow builder: Interactive construction of bioinformatics workflows. PLoS Comput Biol. 2025 Apr 3;21(4):e1012901. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012901. PMID: 40179105; PMCID: PMC11967941.