Dr EOIN O' SULLIVAN1,2,3, DR MONICA NG1,4,5, DR VENKAT VANGAVETI6,7, DR NICHOLAS MATIGAN8, PROF ANDREW MALLETT2,6,7
1Kidney Health Service, Metro North Hospital and Health Service, Brisbane, Australia, 2Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, 3QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia, 4Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland,, Brisbane, Australia, 5Conjoint Internal Medicine Laboratory, Chemical Pathology, Pathology Queensland,, Brisbane, Australia, 6College of Medicine and Dentistry, James Cook University, , Townsville, Australia, 7Townsville Institute of Health Research and Innovation, Townsville University Hospital, , Townsville, Australia, 8QCIF Bioinformatics, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Biography:
Dr Eoin O’Sullivan is a nephrologist and clinical researcher at Metro North Health Brisbane, with academic appointments at the University of Queensland and QIMR Berghofer. His work focuses on chronic kidney disease, cellular senescence, and bioinformatics-driven approaches to translational research. He is a investigator on multiple clinical trials and leads studies exploring senescence biomarkers and precision medicine in nephrology. Dr O’Sullivan contributes to national collaborative research networks and holds advisory roles in trial design and implementation.
Aim:
To curate and consolidate publicly available datasets across the biological spectrum relevant to nephrology, and to highlight nephronexus.com as a new resource for researchers seeking open-access kidney data.
Background:
Access to research-grade data remains a core barrier to high-quality nephrology research, particularly in under-resourced settings. The proliferation of public data repositories is often hampered by fragmentation, paywalls, and lack of awareness across disciplines. We sought to improve visibility and accessibility of relevant public datasets, spanning from population-level registries to gene-level sequencing data.
Methods:
We systematically curated nephrology-relevant data sources across biological scales: registry and cohort data, tissue biobanks and atlases, transcriptomics (RNA-Seq), genomics, and AI training datasets. These were evaluated for accessibility, metadata quality, and relevance, and are now indexed at nephronexus.com.
Results:
The resulting platform, nephronexus.com, structures data across five scales:
1. Patient-level datasets from national registries and disease-specific cohorts
2. Tissue-level biobanks and kidney atlases
3. Transcriptomic datasets, including curated kidney RNA-Seq repositories
4. Genomic resources from population and diagnostic studies
5. AI training datasets across clinical and research domains
This roadmap aims to facilitate reuse of existing data, reduce duplication of effort, and support cost-effective, reproducible research. Importantly, these resources can underpin predictive model development, support embedded trials, and enrich omics discovery pipelines.
Conclusions:
Open data represents a powerful enabler for kidney research. Wider use of these datasets may improve efficiency, equity, and impact of research. Despite some limitations in metadata quality and standardisation, the accessibility of these datasets supports innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and improved care for kidney patients.