The UCSC Xena platform provides an unprecedented resource for public omics data from big projects like The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), however, it is hardfor users to incorporate multiple datasets or data types, integrate the selected data withpopular analysis tools or homebrewed code, and reproduce analysis procedures.

What is restez? R packages for interacting with the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) have, to-date, depended on API query calls via NCBI’s Entrez.For computational analyses that require the automated look-up of reams of biological sequence data, piecemeal querying via bandwith-limited requests is evidently not ideal.