The """"""""information age"""""""" is a term that has come of age;with information generation and consumption being central to our daily lives and paramount to any scientific endeavor. However, information without structure is only noise. The science of information, """"""""informatics,"""""""" is the attempt to extract order from the apparent chaos. This proposal is an informatics proposal to exploit the power of the human visual system and existing biological databases in the pursuit of science. We propose to develop an information visualization (Infovis) product to allow scientists to easily browse relationships among multiple, large, multivariate, heterogeneous databases and thereby to quickly reach testable hypotheses in the pursuit of new discoveries. During Phase I we will leverage recent advances in InfoVis in the design and implementation of an information viewer tailored to integrative geneomic, metabologic, and proteomic studies. The system will be validated using data and recent discoveries from ongoing NIH R01 studies and public databases. In this proposal, only Phase I funding is being requested, nevertheless, our plans for Phase II are clear. Early in the Phase II process, we will extend the system to new application domains and release a beta version of the system to a select, diverse set of beta clinical collaborators. We will then use the lessons learned during Phase I and feedback from our beta testers to further refine the system into a marketable application. Features we anticipate adding including workflows that speed and simplify data entry and queries, and a mechanism for users to define interfaces to additional public databases The proposal consists of three aims:
Aim 1 - Develop a prototype, user-friendly application that gathers """"""""omic data from multiple, existing web-based, biomedical databases.
Aim 2 - Develop an interface into existing web-based, biomedical databases.
Aim 3 - Validate the utility of the application by working with leading biomedical researchers to confirm and extend recent discoveries regarding o Aim 3a - genetic predictors of preeclampsia o Aim 3b - metabolomic correlates in cancer
The """"""""information age"""""""" is a term that has come of age;with information generation and consumption being central to our daily lives and paramount to any scientific endeavor. However, information without structure is only noise. The science of information, """"""""informatics,"""""""" is the attempt to extract order from the apparent chaos. This proposal is an informatics proposal to exploit the power of the human visual system and existing biological databases in the pursuit of science. We propose to develop an information visualization (Infovis) product to allow scientists to easily browse relationships among multiple, large, multivariate, heterogeneous databases and thereby to quickly reach testable hypotheses in the pursuit of new discoveries.
