Mike Martin, Cancer Researchers Think Big with caBIG, Sci-Tech Today, March 8, 2005. Excerpt: 'To cure cancer, researchers will have to "think big." That's why the National Cancer Institute (NCI) inaugurated the cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid, or caBIG, an open-source, open-access information network that will enable researchers to share tools, data, applications and technologies according to common standards. "We believe caBIG will become the World Wide Web of cancer research and will accelerate the development of exciting discoveries in all areas of cancer research," said Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D., director of the National Cancer Institute. caBIG is indeed big -- so big, it may be unprecedented. "The WWW grew out of the particle physics community and its need for data sharing," said Michael Ochs, director of bioinformatics at the Fox Chase Cancer Center. "However, caBIG is an undertaking that involves a much more diverse community and many more types of data and analysis, so I think it is unprecedented within the science community."..."Most, if not all, therapeutic developments in cancer require work at multiple centers," Ochs told NewsFactor. "With new high-throughput technologies, the data load cannot be handled on paper or in simple spreadsheets." The US$20 million caBIG project will provide an infrastructure to make data sharing much easier by linking teams of cancer and biomedical researchers.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/08/2005 01:45:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
