A little semantics can go a long way

Seminar

Title: A little semantics can go a long way: what is the Semantic Web and how can it be used to accelerate translational research and biological discovery

Speaker: Helena F. Deus

Affiliation: ITQB and Digital Enterprise Research Institute, National University of Ireland at Galway

Abstract:

Translational research means using knowledge about molecular biology acquired in the bench and apply it at the bed side. To achieve that goal, there are several challenges that need to be addressed. On the one hand, the new set of “omics” technologies for simultaneously measuring the expression of tens of thousands of genes, such as microarrays and sequencing, are becoming increasingly popular and flooding microbiology labs with unprecedented amounts of data. Extracting useful knowledge from these datasets demands for specialized tools and software which are often not easily accessible to the researchers performing the experiments. On the other hand, there is great potential in extracting and reusing biological knowledge and methodologies available in the literature or in social collaborative environments, for improving discovery across biological disciplines.
The Semantic Web is a new methodology in information and communication technologies which can significantly improve the speed of analysing, integrating and sharing biological information. In practice, Semantic Web Technologies are being used to integrate biological data and knowledge from a variety of web-based biological databases and from the literature and making it accessible through a single platform.
In this seminar, I will show some of the most exciting applications where the Semantic Web has successfully being applied for accelerating discovery in the Life Sciences and enabling translational research.