The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is supportive of open data and sharing data to further collaboration and research in the biosciences.

A challenge that NCBI is faced with today, is to transform the wealth of data emerging from laboratories worldwide into knowledge which will "lead to a better understanding of biological processes underlying both health and disease."

NCBI disseminates its resources to research and medical communities with the view to integrate data and shape more meaningful views of this information. This challenge has been met through the development of a large number of databases and shared data available from the NCBI site.

Two datasets of note include,GenBank and dbGap:

GenBank

GenBank database is maintained by the National Institutes of Health and made available through NCBI. The database stores all known public DNA sequences. Data are submitted to GenBank from individual scientists and science centres involved with the Human Genome Project, and are also annotated and labelled by NCBI investigators.

dbGaP

dbGap is the database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP). It was developed to archive and distribute the results of studies that have investigated the interaction of genotype and phenotype. dbGap has two levels of access - open and controlled. The open-access data can be browsed online or downloaded.

NCBI also provides a variety of tools to use and explore the data, as well as a range of educational materials, how-to guides and training resources.