Making Common Fund data more findable: catalyzing a data ecosystem.

The Common Fund Data Ecosystem (CFDE) has created a flexible system of data federation that enables researchers to discover datasets from across the US National Institutes of Health Common Fund without requiring that data owners move, reformat, or rehost those data. This system is centered on a catalog that integrates detailed descriptions of biomedical datasets from individual Common Fund Programs' Data Coordination Centers (DCCs) into a uniform metadata model that can then be indexed and searched from a centralized portal. This Crosscut Metadata Model (C2M2) supports the wide variety of data types and metadata terms used by individual DCCs and can readily describe nearly all forms of biomedical research data.

Efforts toward optimization of aerobic biohydrogen reveal details of secondary regulation of biological nitrogen fixation by nitrogenous compounds in Azotobacter vinelandii.

Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) through the enzyme nitrogenase is performed by a unique class of organisms known as diazotrophs. One interesting facet of BNF is that it produces molecular hydrogen (H) as a requisite by-product. In the absence of N substrate, or under conditions that limit access of N to the enzyme through modifications of amino acids near the active site, nitrogenase activity can be redirected toward a role as a dedicated hydrogenase.