Seth D. Newsome Joseph A. Cook Chris Harrod Shawn A. Steffan Christopher J. O. Baker Merav Ben-David David Bloom Gabriel J. Bowen Thure E. Cerling Carla Cicero Craig Cook Michelle Dohm Prarthana S. Dharampal Gary Graves Robert Gropp Keith A. Hobson Chris Jordan Bruce MacFadden Suzanne Pilaar Birch Jorrit Poelen Sujeevan Ratnasingham Laura Russell Craig A. Stricker Mark D. Uhen Christopher T. Yarnes Brian Hayden Jonathan N. Pauli 2017 <p><span>Stable isotopes encode and integrate the origin of matter; thus, their analysis offers tremendous potential to address questions across diverse scientific disciplines (</span><span class="xref-bibr">1</span><span>, </span><span class="xref-bibr">2</span><span>). Indeed, the broad applicability of stable isotopes, coupled with advancements in high-throughput analysis, have created a scientific field that is growing exponentially, and generating data at a rate paralleling the explosive rise of DNA sequencing and genomics (</span><span class="xref-bibr">3</span><span>). Centralized data repositories, such as GenBank, have become increasingly important as a means for archiving information, and “Big Data” analytics of these resources are revolutionizing science and everyday life.</span></p> application/pdf 10.1073/pnas.1701742114 en PNAS Opinion: Why we need a centralized repository for isotopic data article