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. 2024 Dec 26;41(1):btae726.
doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btae726.

MOLGENIS Armadillo: a lightweight server for federated analysis using DataSHIELD

Tim Cadman  1 , Mariska K Slofstra  1 , Marije A van der Geest  1 , Demetris Avraam  2 , Tom R P Bishop  3 , Tommy de Boer  1 , Liesbeth Duijts  4   5 , Sido Haakma  1 , Eleanor Hyde  1 , Vincent Jaddoe  5   6 , Tarik Karramass  4   5 , Fleur Kelpin  1 , Yannick Marcon  7 , Angela Pinot de Moira  8 , Dick Postma  1 , Clemens Tolboom  1 , Ruben L Veenstra  1 , Stuart Wheater  9 , Marieke Welten  5   6 , Rebecca C Wilson  10 , Erik Zwart  1 , Morris Swertz  1
Affiliations

MOLGENIS Armadillo: a lightweight server for federated analysis using DataSHIELD

Tim Cadman et al. Bioinformatics. .

Abstract

Summary: Extensive human health data from cohort studies, national registries, and biobanks can reveal lifecourse risk factors impacting health. Combining these sources offers increased statistical power, rare outcome detection, replication of findings, and extended study periods. Traditionally, this required data transfer to a central location or separate partner analyses with pooled summary statistics, posing ethical, legal, and time constraints. Federated analysis-which involves remote data analysis without sharing individual-level data-is a promising alternative. One promising solution is DataSHIELD (https://datashield.org/), an open-source R based implementation. To enable federated analysis, data owners need a user-friendly way to install the federated infrastructure and manage users and data. Here, we present MOLGENIS Armadillo: a lightweight server for federated analysis solutions such as DataSHIELD.

Availability and implementation: Armadillo is implemented as a collection of three packages freely available under the open source licence LGPLv3: two R packages downloadable from the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) ("MolgenisArmadillo" and "DSMolgenisArmdillo") and one Java application ("ArmadilloService") as jar and docker images via Github (https://github.com/molgenis/molgenis-service-armadillo).

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Armadillo information flow.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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