Congratulations to Brian Bot, principal scientist at Sage Bionetworks, on winning the 2020 General Symbiosis Award for sustained efforts in data sharing and for his contributions to the mPower Public Researcher Portal, a Parkinson’s disease data resource, and related digital health data sharing efforts. The award is a part of the 3rd Annual Research Symbiont Awards for excellence in data sharing and was announced during the January 2020 Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing.

“This is really a recognition of the culture and support of Sage Bionetworks and my current and former colleagues,” said Bot. “Thanks to Stephen Friend and Andrew Trister for their early leadership on mPower; John Wilbanks, Christine Suver, and Meg Doerr for developing the informed consent procedures and qualified researcher program for the distribution of these data; the Bridge and Synapse engineering teams; and especially Lara Mangravite and Larsson Omberg for carrying the mPower mantle forward. It truly does take a village. And sometimes that village is a non-profit housed in a nondescript building in Belltown.”

“The Research Symbiont Awards are intended to move the needle toward more and better sharing of research data in a world in which sharing is not always recognized,” said Dr. J. Brian Byrd, chair of the Symbiont Selection Committee and principal investigator at the University of Michigan School of Medicine. “While the deliberations of the awards committee are confidential, I can share my personal thoughts: Brian Bot has made sustained and important contributions to sharing research data, and he has been at the forefront of making sure that sharing is ethical at the same time it is effective. Kudos to Brian and the team at Sage Bionetworks!”