Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
humanity far longer than any other disease, as evident from the fossils, indicat-
ing that TB has haunted humans for more than half a million years. Even
though existing drugs can actually cure most cases of the disease, the lengthy
treatment regimen is a major obstacle. The current frontline drugs were devel-
oped in the middle of the twentieth century and require six to nine months
treatment [4] .
One of the major impediments in discovering new drugs for infectious
diseases is the inadequate understanding of the biology of the bacteria causing
the disease. The lack of market-based incentives also deters investments into
such research by major pharmaceutical companies. Many organizations
working in this fi eld have considerable resource and manpower constraints.
An open and collaborative approach is an alternative model of innovation for
discovering affordable drugs at a faster pace. There is a need to integrate
knowledge and human resources for fi nding solutions to challenges which
elude conventional models. Connecting experts and their knowledge across
various domains is a technological challenge that calls for a framework for
interaction and collective data sharing.
As biology is fast turning to information-driven and quantitative science,
data are generated faster than can be analyzed and understood. Thus, there is
a pressing need to develop technologies not only to handle this massive
amount of data but also for performing comprehensive analyses. The realiza-
tion of these technologies depends on developing standard ontologies for
defi ning data and its properties (see Chapter 5). The Semantic Web technolo-
gies offer powerful new ways to integrate data from disparate sources. This
also provides us with meaningful new ways to query data and is a promising
approach for integration of biological information.
Facilitating collaboration involving interdisciplinary areas encompassing a
wide spectrum of capabilities and skills requires a robust IT infrastructure.
Unlike the earlier collaborations that spanned a couple of laboratories, the
present collaborations span across the world with individual expertise drawn
from diverse fi elds. In a conventional collaborative model the partners are
predecided and known. In the open-source model the crowdsourcing of
unknown varying expertise makes the collaboration seamless and dynamic.
This implies that the collaborative infrastructure should also scale to keep
pace. In this chapter we discuss how the OSDD's Semantic Web-based portal
(http://sysborg2.osdd.net) enables collaborative networking using the Internet.
20.2 SEMANTIC WEB - BASED PORTAL TO
LINK MIND AND MACHINES
This OSDD Web portal (developed pro bono by Infosys Technologies) is the
interface for presentation and exchange of information over the Internet. It is
used by the OSDD community of over 4000 participants from more than 120
countries. A Semantic Web-based portal has been developed for seamless
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