Overview
What AnVIL Is
AnVIL is a cloud-based genomic data sharing and analysis platform that serves as the designated data repository for datasets generated by NHGRI programs, while also hosting data from other NIH institutes and agencies supporting human genomics research. It was launched in 2018 with a "bring researchers to the data" philosophy — rather than downloading massive files, users analyze data in place in the cloud.
Scale
Since its inception, AnVIL has ingested over ten petabytes of data. The platform provides access to genomic data from over 600,000 samples. As of late 2024, 257 datasets were added to the AnVIL Data Library, accessible and searchable with options to request access based on data use permissions.
Major Datasets
Key consortia represented include the 1000 Genomes Project, Centers for Common Disease Genomics (CCDG), Centers for Mendelian Genomics (CMG), the eMERGE Network (electronic medical records and genomics), the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) Biobank, the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium (HPRC), the Polygenic Risk in Diverse Populations Consortium, and the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) consortium.
Some highlights of specific datasets:
- GTEx: The GTEx dataset contains genotype data from 838 postmortem donors and 17,382 RNA-seq samples across 54 tissue sites and 2 cell lines. GTEx V10 was released on AnVIL in November 2024.
- 1000 Genomes: The widely used 1000 Genomes Project whole-genome sequencing dataset includes both raw data and harmonized variant calls from 3,202 samples of diverse human populations and is open access.
- CMG: The CMGs have deposited over 15,025 exomes and 707 genomes to 39 AnVIL workspaces, along with accompanying metadata including sample-, subject-, family-, discovery-, and sequence-level information.
Access
Data is a mix of open-access and controlled-access. Some datasets like 1000 Genomes are open access, while others require applying for access through the appropriate Data Access Committee. Controlled-access data is managed through dbGaP or the DUOS (Data Use Oversight System).
Notes
Particularly useful for analyses requiring raw WGS without large local data transfers. TCGA-OV, TCGA-UCEC, and TCGA-CESC data available as ready-to-use Terra workspaces.