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Dataerai can pull sequencing data from the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA), EMBL-EBI’s public repository of nucleotide-sequencing data, into one of your projects as metadata-first assets. The study’s metadata — title, description, submitting centre, publication date — is copied into Dataerai so it’s searchable and shareable alongside your own data. The files are not copied: clicking Download on an imported asset streams that sequence file (FASTQ, assembly, etc.) directly from ENA’s host over HTTPS.
Imported assets are metadata-first: they describe and link to data that lives on ENA. Nothing is stored in your Dataerai allocation, so importing doesn’t consume your quota.
One ENA study (an accession such as PRJEB1234, ERP001234, or SRP001234) imports as a collection of assets — one asset per sequence file in the study, grouped under a collection named for the study. Each asset’s file (e.g. ERR214763_1.fastq.gz) downloads straight from ENA. A study with no publicly downloadable files (for example, an access-restricted study) instead imports as a single asset that links out to the study’s ENA browser record.

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Search the European Nucleotide Archive

Open the Import from European Nucleotide Archive page and enter a search term, then Search.
  • The search is free text and matches the study title — try cancer, E. coli, or microbiome.
  • Results show Title, Type, and Files, with the study accession and publication date under each title.
  • Use Per page to trade clicks for a longer page. The page count reflects the full result set, so you can page to the last page directly.

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Select and import

1

Select studies

Tick the studies you want — click a row, or press Space or Enter on it, to toggle its checkbox. The header checkbox selects or clears everything on the current page; your selection is kept as you page through results.
2

Choose the destination project

Paste the UUID of the project that should own the new assets into the Import into project field.
3

Import

Click Import. Large selections are sent in batches automatically, and a single Import result panel summarizes how many studies were imported (and how many assets were created), plus any that failed and why.
A single study can contain many sequence files, so importing one study can create many assets. Very large studies import a capped subset of their files; the rest remain available directly on ENA.
Because imported assets point at ENA rather than your own storage, their files are only available while the ENA objects are. If you need a durable copy under your control, download the file and upload it as a regular asset instead.

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Next steps

Metadata-first assets

How assets that describe data elsewhere work in Dataerai.

Import from Zenodo

Pull public records from Zenodo the same metadata-first way.

Organize into collections

Group imported studies alongside your own data.

Search & discover

Find imported studies by title, type, and metadata.