HYPATIA (https://hypatia.athenarc.gr/) is the Cloud infrastructure that has been developed to support the computational needs of the ELIXIR-GR community and the broader community of life scientists in Greece and abroad. Under the hood, it is based on SCHEMA (https://schema.athenarc.gr/), a suite of open-source platforms that facilitate the allocation of computational cluster resources for scientific use.
One of the key functionalities offered is an API and a UI that enables the execution of containerized Common Workflow Language (CWL) workflows, implementing various well-established standards, including the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health’s (GA4GH) Workflow and Task Execution Service (WES and TES) API specifications.
Workflows are an essential tool for managing highly complex biological data in modern life science research. Providing a seamless and interoperable environment for executing life science workflows is crucial for maximizing biological insight. Towards this direction, we propose to enhance SCHEMA’s platform capabilities to support additional workflow languages such as Snakemake, Nextflow and Galaxy. In this way, data analysis workflows can be automated, rigorous and easily reproducible. Moreover, the use of RO-Crates will be tested in conjunction with workflow languages to facilitate the creation of self-contained packages that include all the necessary components o reproducing research and therefore advance scientific understanding.
The focus will be to adjust SCHEMA to support additional workflow languages. To this end, the project participants will identify and choose the most appropriate languages for their specific needs aiming at languages that can be easily combined with SCHEMA.
Overall, the proposed project has the potential to provide both short-term and long-term benefits to the scientific community. By enhancing the capabilities of the SCHEMA platform and promoting research reproducibility, the project has the potential to advance scientific understanding and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of scientific research.
It is worth to mention that (a) one of the project leads (Thanasis Vergoulis) has previous experience in leading a successful project in BH2021, (b) there is already expressed interest from two developers to participate in the project, and (c) developer documentation is available (https://schema.athenarc.gr/).
Thanasis Vergoulis, Eleni Adamidi