This is the abstract of an article by Lincoln Stein in this month’s Nature Reviews Genetics (9, 678-688; September 2008), title: Towards a cyberinfrastructure for the biological sciences: progress, visions and challenges.
Biology is an information-driven science. Large-scale data sets from genomics, physiology, population genetics and imaging are driving research at a dizzying rate. Simultaneously, interdisciplinary collaborations among experimental biologists, theorists, statisticians and computer scientists have become the key to making effective use of these data sets. However, too many biologists have trouble accessing and using these electronic data sets and tools effectively. A ‘cyberinfrastructure’ is a combination of databases, network protocols and computational services that brings people, information and computational tools together to perform science in this information-driven world. This article reviews the components of a biological cyberinfrastructure, discusses current and pending implementations, and notes the many challenges that lie ahead.
The article has a companion Wiki with “pointers to some of the current and pending implementations of a biological cyberinfrastructure”. The journal editors write that they intend to keep this Wiki up to date with help from the community, and invite readers to edit sections, add new pages or update sections as appropriate. There is an associated Nature Network group for general discussion.
Update: and an interesting post about the project by Euan Adie at Nascent blog.