BOL: October 2013

BEReX : Biomedical Entity-Relation eXplorer

Rahul Nayak — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 15:53:26 -0500

BEReX is a new biomedical knowledge integration, search, and exploration tool. BEReX integrates eight popular databases (STRING, DrugBank, KEGG, PharmGKB, BioGRID, GO, HPRD, and MSigDB) and delineates an integrated network by combining the information available from these databases. Users search the integrated network by entering keywords and BEReX returns a sub-network matching the keywords. The resulting graph can be explored interactively. BEReX allows users to find the shortest paths between two remote nodes; find the most relevant drugs, diseases, pathways and so on, related to the current network; expand the network by particular types of entities and relations; and modify the network by removing or adding selected nodes. BEReX is implemented as a stand-alone Java application.

More at http://infos.korea.ac.kr/berex

News reference @ http://infos.korea.ac.kr

An entire genome written in lab

Rahul Nayak — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 09:43:03 -0500

This is the first time ever the genetic code has been fundamentally changed. The breakthrough is a huge step forward in synthetic biology and opens up the possibility of turning re-coded bacteria into biofactories, capable of producing potent new forms of protein that could fight disease or generate sustainable materials.

More @ http://news.yale.edu/2013/10/17/researchers-rewrite-entire-genome-and-add-healthy-twist

News Reference: Yale news

Image Source: Sciencedaily.

PubMed opens for comment

Rahul Nayak — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 12:40:17 -0500

The informal conversations that researchers have at scientific meetings look set to move online, if a new initiative by the US National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) has its way. On 22 October, the NCBI of Bethesda, Maryland, launched the pilot phase of a programme called PubMed Commons. This will allow users to comment on published abstracts on the PubMed website, which indexes some 22 million papers.

For now, only a select group of researchers and their invited guests can use the system. But the NCBI's director David Lipman, who helped to develop the programme, says that soon any PubMed author will be allowed to comment under his or her real name and anyone will be able to read the comments.

More @ http://www.nature.com/news/pubmed-opens-for-comment-1.14023

News source Nature.