Biological knowledge management: the emerging role of the Semantic Web technologies

Brief Bioinform. 2009 Jul;10(4):392-407. doi: 10.1093/bib/bbp024. Epub 2009 May 19.

Abstract

New knowledge is produced at a continuously increasing speed, and the list of papers, databases and other knowledge sources that a researcher in the life sciences needs to cope with is actually turning into a problem rather than an asset. The adequate management of knowledge is therefore becoming fundamentally important for life scientists, especially if they work with approaches that thoroughly depend on knowledge integration, such as systems biology. Several initiatives to organize biological knowledge sources into a readily exploitable resourceome are presently being carried out. Ontologies and Semantic Web technologies revolutionize these efforts. Here, we review the benefits, trends, current possibilities, and the potential this holds for the biosciences.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Computational Biology / methods
  • Database Management Systems
  • Humans
  • Information Dissemination / methods
  • Information Storage and Retrieval / methods*
  • Internet*
  • Semantics*
  • Systems Biology
  • User-Computer Interface*