Building the Biological Psychiatry Data Commons (BPsyc-DC)

Uniting pre-clinical models, data and researchers to understand mental disorders at the molecular level

Background

Mental disorders are among the leading contributors to disease burden in Australia and globally, yet progress toward objective biomarkers and disease-modifying treatments has been limited. Diagnoses remain largely symptom-based, and existing treatments are often only partially effective and associated with significant side effects. This represents a major unmet medical need for individuals, families and communities affected by mental illness.

A key barrier to progress in biological psychiatry is the fragmentation of research data. Insights into disease mechanisms are generated across cellular, animal and human studies, but these data are typically siloed, small in scale, and difficult to integrate. The absence of shared infrastructure to harmonise, manage and analyse data across model systems limits statistical power, slows discovery, and constrains translation into clinical impact.

Addressing this challenge requires coordinated national infrastructure that enables researchers to securely aggregate, harmonise and interrogate molecular data across diverse psychiatric models.

Image of a brain with digital connection networks

The Consortium for Preclinical Psychiatric Research (CPPR)

In Australia, biological psychiatry is driven by world-leading psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and molecular biologists who have formed the Consortium for Preclinical Psychiatric Research (CPPR). The CPPR is a national collaboration led by Monash University researchers A/Prof Rachel Hill and Prof Suresh Sundram, and provides coordination and leadership for a nation-first effort to standardise and integrate large-scale molecular data generated from cellular, animal and human models of psychiatric disorders. 

By harmonising these models through consistent data collection methods and shared governance, the consortium seeks to improve understanding of biological causality and support the development of robust, empirically validated models to support drug development, diagnostics, treatment stratification, and prognostics.

The Biological Psychiatry Data Commons

The Biological Psychiatry Data Commons (BPsyc-DC) is being developed to support the CPPR and its partners by providing a secure, FAIR-aligned, metadata-rich platform for psychiatric research. It is designed as a national digital infrastructure capability that enables the discovery, management and analysis of harmonised multi-omics data across diverse psychiatric model systems.

The BPsyc-DC builds on the Australian Psychiatric Research Knowledge Bank initiative, which brings together CPPR-associated biosamples and datasets generated in partnership with national infrastructure organisations. By providing shared digital infrastructure, governance frameworks and interoperability, the BPsyc-DC supports the progression from curated datasets toward an integrated, reusable national resource.

At its core, the BPsyc-DC is a cloud-based data platform with appropriate ethical oversight and governance, enabling the research community to manage, analyse and share sensitive data responsibly while maximising reuse and impact.

The BPsyc-DC is designed to:

  • Support harmonisation of multi-omics data across cellular, animal and human psychiatric models

  • Enable secure, governed access to data under CPPR-led ethical and data governance frameworks

  • Improved discoverability and reuse of psychiatric research data through FAIR principles and national catalogues

  • Facilitate scalable, cross-cohort and cross-model analyses that increase statistical power and biological insight

  • Interoperate with national and international research data infrastructure to support collaboration and sustainability.

By integrating molecular data across model systems, the BPsyc-DC provides a foundation for identifying convergent biological signatures associated with mental disorders and accelerating translation toward diagnostics and therapeutics. 

National collaborations and infrastructure partnerships

The BPsyc-DC is being developed by Australian BioCommons in close collaboration with the CPPR and Australia’s research infrastructure organisations.

Australian BioCommons leads the design and delivery of the BPsyc-DC as a secure, FAIR-aligned digital infrastructure capability. This includes responsibility for core data commons architecture, metadata and data model development, secure and governed access frameworks, and interoperability with national and international research infrastructure. The BPsyc-DC aligns with Australian BioCommons’ GUARDIANS program, ensuring consistency with other national health and disease omics data infrastructure and long-term sustainability.

Australian BioCommons is working in partnership with:

  • Bioplatforms Australia, providing national investment and coordinated platform capabilities that support the generation of high-quality, standardised molecular data from the CPPR community

  • Australian Research Data Commons, supporting FAIR data practises, metadata standards and national discoverability

  • Phenomics Australia, contributing expertise in preclinical model development and phenotyping.

Together, these partners are already working collaboratively to underpin the BPsyc-DC with high-quality data, robust digital infrastructure and governance frameworks that enable responsible sharing and long-term reuse.

Future directions

The BPsyc-DC is designed as a foundational capability that can expand over time in response to community needs and scientific opportunity. Future directions include:

  • Incorporation of additional data types such as epigenomics, metabolomics, lipidomics, and immune or inflammatory phenotyping

  • Scaling to support a broader range of mental disorders represented within the CPPR community

  • Integration of secure analytics environments to support advanced statistical and machine-learning-based analyses

  • Development of AI-enabled tools to enhance data interrogation and hypothesis generation across integrated molecular datasets.

Collaboration

The Biological Psychiatry Data Commons is being developed by Australian BioCommons in collaboration with the Consortium for Preclinical Psychiatric Research and national research infrastructure organisations including Bioplatforms Australia, Phenomics Australia and the Australian Research Data Commons.

Project partners: