Research tools, such as model organisms, cell lines, and antibodies, are essential to designing and executing successful biological experiments. These resources are often shared or made commercially available to support scientific progress. Given the fast pace of research, it can be difficult to keep track of the large number of available tools. Moreover, for those new to a particular disease area, learning about the array of tools available can be a major impediment. Our experience in the neurofibromatosis field has shown that researchers struggle to identify the research tools available to them, determine where tools can be acquired, and understand what tools are most well-suited for which experiments. While a variety of databases exist to help researchers find useful research tools, these databases often a) are specific to one type of research tool while being disease-agnostic, b) provide only high-level information, c) do not contain information about in-development models, and d) do not contain observational data for the research tools. To address these limitations, we created the Neurofibromatosis Research Tools Database, a user-friendly, open-access database and companion portal designed to help the neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) research community easily find, obtain, and use NF1-relevant research tools. This prototype database catalogs a wide variety of NF1-relevant research tools using databases such as Cellosaurus, AntibodyRegistry, RRID Portal, among others, as well as information provided in literature and from the NF community. We aggregated and curated metadata for NF1-relevant animal models, cell lines, genetic reagents, antibodies, and biobanks. The database includes core metadata for all tools, e.g., name, type of tool, synonyms, developer, as well as tool type-specific metadata, e.g., for cell lines or animal models, the type of cancer that the model recapitulates. The database is also designed to store observational data contributed directly from the research community. Our companion web portal allows users to search and filter this database interactively and easily explore these tools. This website was built within the NF Data Portal (nf.synapse.org), and is available at tools.nf.synapse.org. Community members can actively contribute to the growth of the database and portal by submitting information about the reliability, biology, usage, and other observations on each research tool. By collating and curating this information and surfacing it in an open-access exploration portal, we anticipate that this database will serve as a valuable resource to help the NF community discover, understand, and use NF1 research tools. Citation Format: Brynn Zalmanek, James Goss, Mialy DeFelice, Jay Hodgson, Ashley Clayton, Stockard Simon, Marco Marasca, Julie Bletz, James A. Eddy, Milen Nikolov, Kevin Boske, Ljubomir Bradic, Jineta Banerjee, Kalyan Vinnakota, Caroline Morin, YooRi Kim, Robert J. Allaway. NF Research Tools Database: A knowledge base of experimental research tools for neurofibromatosis [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 1675.

Experimental tools and resources, such as animal models, cell lines, antibodies, genetic reagents and biobanks, are key ingredients in biomedical research. Investigators face multiple challenges when trying to understand the availability, applicability and accessibility of these tools. A major challenge is keeping up with current information about the numerous tools available for a particular research problem. A variety of disease-agnostic projects such as the Mouse Genome Informatics database and the Resource Identification Initiative curate a number of types of research tools. Here, we describe our efforts to build upon these resources to develop a disease-specific research tool resource for the neurofibromatosis (NF) research community. This resource, the NF Research Tools Database, is an open-access database that enables the exploration and discovery of information about NF type 1-relevant animal models, cell lines, antibodies, genetic reagents and biobanks. Users can search and explore tools, obtain detailed information about each tool as well as read and contribute their observations about the performance, reliability and characteristics of tools in the database. NF researchers will be able to use the NF Research Tools Database to promote, discover, share, reuse and characterize research tools, with the goal of advancing NF research. Database URL: https://tools.nf.synapse.org/.