Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
(GeneGo), and others [69]. Noncommercial tools, including PATIKAweb
( http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/
patikaweb/), are also available [70]. These tools
can enable visualization of global cellular mechanisms and use curated content
on human physical protein-protein interactions, allowing different levels of
cellular functionality captured as maps of current biological knowledge or
custom-built interaction networks. There are even signifi cant open approaches
to building pathway databases (http://www.wikipathways.org/index.php/
WikiPathways) [71, 72] and systems biology platforms [73] which perhaps have
persuaded the commercial companies to make some of their pathways freely
available ( http://www.genego.com/mapbrowse.php ).
∼
28.6.1
Facilitating Collaborations in Systems Biology Community
There need to be active methods to facilitate collaborations between scientists
and systems biologists if science is to advance. Currently these types of interac-
tions predominantly occur in established institutes. We posit the question
about what could happen if they could be more open. For example, Web-based
social networking technologies that could enable any scientist to fi nd and col-
laborate with another scientist that could apply systems biology to the project
in question, or simply for a biologist to share data with systems biologists (so
that computational models could then be sent back and tested by the
researcher), would potentially advance the science in more than an additive
fashion.
There have been some efforts to develop software that can be used to build
biomedical Web communities using a semantically aware content management
system. One example is the science collaboration framework that has been
used to create open-access online communities such as StemBook (http://
www.stembook.org/) and PD online (http://www.pdonlineresearch.org/), which
deal with stem cell research and Parkinson's disease, respectively [74]. These
communities provide clear attribution for content as well as editorial review.
It would not be too much of a step if these were extended to connect scientists
and their data in addition to their publications. What if scientists with a systems
biology background were a part of these communities or such communities
were interconnected?
28.7 MOBILE COMPUTING AND ITS IMPACT ON
COLLABORATIONS
In the last decade we have seen not only the fusion of mobile telephones
with music players and Web browsing but also the introduction of less expen-
sive, smaller devices like netbooks, tablet computers, and smart phones that
are likely to become increasingly prevalent and more powerful as micropro-
cessors and memory modules become even cheaper. There has been parallel
development of programming languages and standards leading to software
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