Open PHACTS nanopublications published in Nature Genetics

30 May 2011

Researchers from the Open PHACTS project have published a paper in Nature Genetics that proposes representing data and assertions in the form of nanopublications.

The nanopublication is the smallest unit of publication and is essentially a single assertion and its associated data and material. According to the team, using nanopublications will make it easier to place a value on data, support research by tapping into vast, interoperable reserves of information, and also make it easier for scientists and others to follow up individual assertions or develop hypotheses.

Open PHACTS will test the nanopublication concept to create an Open Pharmacological Space (OPS). In the OPS, a layer of data and text extraction methods is placed over existing data of different kinds (e.g. rough data, processed datasets and literature). The methods allow close to real time updates of nanopublications from these databases and make them publicly available via the OPS, but do not interfere with local database management.

"The Open PHACTS consortium thus creates an extra, computer readable layer that works across previously isolated datasets," explains the lead author of the paper, Barend Mons of Leiden University Medical Center and the Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre.

To News list