There are many challenges to developing treatments for complex diseases. This review explores the question of whether it is possible to imagine a data repository that would increase the pace of understanding complex diseases sufficiently well to facilitate the development of effective treatments. First, consideration is given to the amount of data that might be needed for such a data repository and whether the existing data storage infrastructure is enough. Several successful data repositories are then examined to see if they have common characteristics. An area of science where unsuccessful attempts to develop a data infrastructure is then described to see what lessons could be learned for a data repository devoted to complex disease. Then, a variety of issues related to sharing data are discussed. In some of these areas, it is reasonably clear how to move forward. In other areas, there are significant open questions that need to be addressed by all data repositories. Using that baseline information, the question of whether data archives can be effective in understanding a complex disease is explored. The major goal of such a data archive is likely to be identifying biomarkers that define sub-populations of the disease.

中文翻译：

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资料库可以帮助找到有效的复杂疾病治疗方法吗？

开发复杂疾病的治疗方法面临许多挑战。这篇综述探讨了一个问题，即是否有可能想象出一个数据库来充分提高对复杂疾病的了解，从而促进有效治疗的发展。首先，考虑了此类数据存储库可能需要的数据量以及现有数据存储基础结构是否足够。然后检查几个成功的数据存储库，以查看它们是否具有共同的特征。然后描述了未能成功开发数据基础结构的科学领域，以了解可以从致力于复杂疾病的数据库中学到什么。然后，讨论了与共享数据有关的各种问题。在某些地区，很清楚如何前进。在其他领域，所有数据存储库都需要解决重大的开放性问题。使用该基线信息，探讨了数据档案是否可以有效地理解复杂疾病的问题。这种数据档案库的主要目标可能是识别定义疾病亚群的生物标记。