[sc-announce] Speeding drug discovery through the Semantic Web -- Science Commons blog
Donna Wentworth
dwentworth at creativecommons.org
Mon Jan 28 14:03:46 EST 2008
Speeding drug discovery through the Semantic
Web<http://sciencecommons.org/weblog/archives/2008/01/28/speeding-drug-discovery-through-the-semantic-web/>
January
28th, 2008
One of the most important reasons Science Commons exists is to help people
find cures for disease faster. So we are delighted and honored to have made
the *FasterCures* <http://www.fastercures.org/> list of Ten to Watch
in 2008<http://fastercures.blogspot.com/2008/01/fastercures-ten-to-watch-in-2008.html>—
recognizing "the top ten organizations, people, and ideas that are
changing the face of biomedical research in 2008."
*FasterCures* is a nonprofit organization dedicated to "saving lives by
saving time." *FasterCures* President Greg Simon, who oversaw a wide range
of national scientific research initiatives as Chief Domestic Policy Advisor
to former Vice President Al Gore,
writes<http://fastercures.blogspot.com/2008/01/fastercures-ten-to-watch-in-2008.html>
:
Collaborative science is the name of the game these days, as science gets
bigger and more multi-disciplinary and the data available for research grows
explosively. The technological opportunity presented by the Semantic Web for
networking data and researchers will be transformative. Watch the Neurocommons
Project <http://sciencecommons.org/projects/data/>, a demonstration of the
power of the Semantic Web approach based on open access information.
What is a "Semantic Web <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web>"
approach, and how can it help us meet the challenge of so-called network
science?
In the simplest terms, it's a way to mark research data so computers can
help us make sense of it. The driving concept is that collaboration in
science needs to make a shift from human-mediated to computer-mediated, from
single-database access to data integration, from reading papers by people to
reading papers with machines, and so on.
As part of the Neurocommons Project, we mark research that's free to use —
open access information — using the Semantic Web
RDF<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework>language.
This means that computers — not people — can sort through the
data, giving researchers the ability to swiftly process much larger data
sets. And that means that the research won't simply be more accessible, it
will also be easier to use — leading, we hope, to more (and faster)
breakthroughs that benefit everyone.
................
Donna Wentworth
Communications Specialist
Science Commons
http://sciencecommons.org
dwentworth at creativecommons.org <kaitlin at creativecommons.org>
................
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