Big Data: The Future of Biocuration

Authors: HOWE, DOUG - UNIVERSITY OF OREGON; COSTANZO, MARIA - STANFORD UNIVERSITY; FEY, PETRA - NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY; GOJOBORI, TAKASHI - DDBJ, MISHIMA, JAPAN; HANNICK, LINDA - J CRAIG VENTNER INSTITUTE; HIDE, WINSTON - UNIV OF WESTERN CAPE, SA; HILL, DAVID - JACKSON LAB BAR HARBOR ME; KANIA, RENATE - EMBL, HEIDELBERG GERMANY; Schaeffer, Mary; ST. PIERRE, SUSAN - HARVARD UNIVERSITY; TWIGGER, SIMON - MED COLLEGE OF WISCONSIN; WHITE, OWEN - UNIV OF MARYLAND-BALTIMOR; RHEE, SEUNG - CARNEGIE INSTITUTE

Submitted to: Nature
Publication Type: Other
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/15/2008
Publication Date: 9/4/2008
Citation: Howe, D., Costanzo, M., Fey, P., Gojobori, T., Hannick, L., Hide, W., Hill, D.P., Kania, R., Schaeffer, M.L., St. Pierre, S., Twigger, S., White, O., Rhee, S.Y. 2008. Big Data: The Future of Biocuration. Nature. 455(7209):47-50.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: This report is a white paper that describes the roles of biocurators in linking biologists to their data. Roles include: to extract knowledge from published papers; to connect information from different sources in a coherent and comprehensible way; to inspect and correct automatically predicted gene structures and protein sequence to provide high-quality proteomes; to develop and manage structured controlled vocabularies that are crucial for data relations and the logical retrieval of large data sets; to integrate knowledge bases to represent complex systems such as metabolic pathways and protein-interaction networks; to correct inconsistencies and errors in data representation; to help data users to render their research more productive in a timely manner; to steer the design of web-based resources; and to interact with researchers to facilitate direct data submissions to databases.