What We Offer

Open Science and reproducibility

To promote open science and reproducibility, SPARC is fully aligned with the 2023 NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy, offering researchers a compliant, professionally supported environment for sharing and accessing scientific outputs. Investigators can benefit from standardized or customized solutions for NIH-compliant Data Management and Sharing Plans that simultaneously facilitate long-term data and model preservation, visibility, explorability, and reuse through a trusted, professionally managed platform.

Thinking about how your research fits?

Our domain of interest is neuromodulation of the peripheral nervous system, with a special focus on its impacts on organ function. The goal of the SPARC program is to identify neural targets and accelerate the development of therapeutic devices that modulate electrical activity in the vagus and other nerves to help treat diseases and conditions, such as hypertension and gastrointestinal disorders, by precisely adjusting organ function. It doesn't end with the autonomic nervous system, though, since on- and off-target predictions require a comprehensive understanding of how its interacts and controls organ function. That's why the SPARC Portal is an open repository, to integrate and expand knowledge regarding the peripheral nervous system, including the spinal cord.

Is SPARC a fit for you? We encourage you to contact us to discuss your research, specific needs, and support levels.

Here's how the SPARC Data and Resource Center can help:

Is SPARC a fit for you? If you are an independent investigator and your research fits within the SPARC mission, please submit your request to get started. If you are part of a larger project or consortia, please contact us to start a conversation.

What services are available?

The SPARC Data and Resource Center (DRC) offers an integrated approach and develops technologies that foster new collaborations to enable integration of data and models, meta-data, comprehensive knowledge management, and publication on the SPARC Portal. SPARC DRC services can be employed for selected datasets, models, or tools, or to support publication of complete project outcomes.

The DRC is composed of four complementary Cores that together can offer the following services:

Full project support:

• Dedicated private space
• Dedicated public space
• Professional curation services (see below)
• Community outreach: news/science highlights
• Integrated data viewers for data types not yet supported
• Standards development and data harmonization support
• FAIR data practices
• Linkage to other data repositories
• Access to the full suite of SPARC services and tools, as provided below.

Data Management and Sharing:

• Private/public data management
• Data citation and metrics
• Custom data management services as negotiated

Curation services: SPARC standards ensure a consistent and professional look and feel across all datasets and an enhanced user experience through an expanded tool base

• SODA tool to help researchers organize their data according to SPARC standards
• Additional basic curatorial support is provided at no charge via office hours
• Professional curation as negotiated

Simulation platform: SPARC provides access to o²S²PARC and many of its services for academic use, including

• SPARC models of the peripheral nervous system, neuromodulation, and autonomic regulation of organ function
• Modules for interactive and reproducible image and data analysis, simulation tools and solvers (subcellular to large scale anatomy; data-based and mechanistic; biophysics and physiology), scripting (e.g., JupyterLab flavors), artificial intelligence, anatomical models, and much more
• Basic support (troubleshooting)
• Customized services and access, such as extended resources (storage and computational), application support (e.g., with model or application development, onboarding, and publication), customization of modules and platform functionality, setup of collaboration environments for organizations, own deployment and branded website, can be negotiated

Knowledge engineering and mapping services: SPARC maintains a full knowledge engineering service available for

• Building and extending ontologies
• Modeling multi-scale neuronal connectivity
• Utilizing the ApiNATOMY tools for building semantic models of functional tissue units
• Model onboarding support
• Mapping services
• Connectivity maps
• Custom knowledge engineering and mapping services as negotiated

We maintain a set of tools that allow investigators to perform several of these activities free of charge or you can utilize our expertise.

Contact us for additional information on how to work with SPARC Data and Resource Center.

Note: We aim to provide our products free or for a minimal charge to the academic research community. We will never charge for access to our data and tools. However, in order to maintain and continue innovation of the SPARC Portal and associated products and services, we need those using SPARC to help defray some of our costs. Thank you for supporting our mission.