The NIGMS Sandbox, a cloud-based learning platform that teaches students, researchers, and clinicians how to harness cloud technology for life sciences applications and research, has been featured in a special supplement of Briefings in Bioinformatics.

The Sandbox, launched in 2023, was built through a collaboration between NIGMS, the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy, the National Institutes of Health Center for Information Technology, NIGMS-funded investigators, and a team of cloud engineers, bioinformaticians, and project managers. The platform is hosted on GitHub and has 12 learning modules that are publicly available for self-learning as well as for use in a classroom setting. Each module represents a unique use case or scientific workflow and is delivered through interactive step-by-step tutorials, quizzes, and visualizations. Modules range in areas from introductory material to single-omics approaches, multi-omics techniques, single cell analysis, metagenomics, and AI/ML imaging applications.

To date, the NIGMS Sandbox has had nearly 7,000 unique views and has provided training for more than 500 students at IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence institutions. A Google cloud account is necessary to run the learning modules. National Institutes of Health (NIH) grantees and affiliated researchers interested in accessing the modules can request free cloud credits from the NIH Cloud Lab. Efforts are underway to convert these modules to execute in the Amazon (AWS) and Microsoft (Azure) platforms as well.

NIGMS recently issued supplemental awards to develop 14 additional modules in the following areas: 

• Programming fundamentals
• Omics
• Microbiome analysis
• Structural biology
• Population genetics 

Once completed, the modules will be added to the NIGMS Sandbox, making 26 modules available for public use across multiple cloud platforms. We encourage you to read the special edition of Briefings in Bioinformatics to learn more about the currently available modules, and to share this valuable resource with others at your organization.