PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Andrea Blasco
AU  - Michael G. Endres
AU  - Rinat A. Sergeev
AU  - Anup Jonchhe
AU  - Max Macaluso
AU  - Rajiv Narayan
AU  - Ted Natoli
AU  - Jin H. Paik
AU  - Bryan Briney
AU  - Chunlei Wu
AU  - Andrew I. Su
AU  - Aravind Subramanian
AU  - Karim R. Lakhani
TI  - Advancing Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Research Through Open Innovation Competitions
AID  - 10.1101/565481
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 565481
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/03/01/565481.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/03/01/565481.full
AB  - Open data science and algorithm development competitions offer a unique avenue for rapid discovery of better computational strategies. We highlight three examples in computational biology and bioinformatics research where the use of competitions has yielded significant performance gains over established algorithms. These include algorithms for antibody clustering, imputing gene expression data, and querying the Connectivity Map (CMap). Performance gains are evaluated quantitatively using realistic, albeit sanitized, data sets. The solutions produced through these competitions are then examined with respect to their utility and the prospects for implementation in the field. We present the decision process and competition design considerations that lead to these successful outcomes as a model for researchers who want to use competitions and non-domain crowds as collaborators to further their research.