Keeping up with the literature is a challenge for all scientists. But some researchers are making it easier by enhancing the usability and understanding of an article’s contents in a variety of...
Jul, 01, 2009
Transparent peer review, replication studies, and journals of negative results all suggest change is on the horizon
As I was writing this editorial, I learned about yet another scientific paper being retracted. This time it was a genetics paper in Science, one of the hundreds of retractions that the blog...
Sep, 01, 2011
The availability of free and open access data, models, and software indisputably accelerates scientific progress. Unfortunately, dissemination necessitates organization, documentation, and quality...
Jan, 01, 2010
Using computational models, researchers are gaining traction toward understanding what makes a stem cell a stem cell; how gene expression drives stem cell differentiation; why studying stem cell heterogeneity is important; and, ultimately, how stem cells control their fate.
To the casual observer, stem cells offer the almost magical promise of—Voila!—turning into exactly the kind of cell needed to repair an injured spinal cord or replace a damaged organ. And...
Apr, 01, 2010
Lessons on leaving academia
Just over a year ago, I left academia. I had been in that realm for 25 years, working in musculoskeletal biomechanics and human movement analysis. It was a move that might have surprised anyone who...
Jan, 02, 2012
A novel approach to publishing for large research projects
When a large research project generates lots of data over a long time, that data can tell many different stories. Such was the case when the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) project geared up to...
Oct, 22, 2012
Profiles in Computer Science Courage Part I: Reflections on the rewards of plunging into biomedicine
Interviews with Leonidas Guibas, Ron Shamir, Michael Black, David Haussler, Daphne Koller, Erin Halperin, Gene Myers, Paul Groth and Bruce Donald
To a computer scientist, the fields of biology and medicine can seem like the vast Pacific Ocean, says Leonidas Guibas, PhD, professor of computer science at Stanford University. “You go to the...
Apr, 01, 2011
Central repository of information on genes and proteins requires participation by the scientific community
If you build it, will they come? That’s the question on everyone’s mind after the launch of two pioneering initiatives in community annotation: WikiProteins and Gene Wiki, announced,...
Oct, 01, 2008
Public databases impact not only how research is done but what kind of research is done in the first place.
The setting: a scientific conference in January 2008. The speaker, Bruce Ponder, MD, PhD, an oncology professor at Cambridge University, is describing a previously unknown link between a particular...
Oct, 01, 2008
Computational modeling can help fill gaps in how we develop and review new drugs and devices
What role does computational modeling play at the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)? If you ask Paul Watkins, MD, director of the Hamner—University of North Carolina...
Sep, 01, 2011
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