Researchers at the RIKEN BioResource Center are developing a system that will be able to bring together all of the information saved in databases around the world to be accessible from a single terminal.
R&D Magazine brought this topic to our attention in their article, “Integrating the world’s scientific databases through ontology.” This “Borg” sounding system will allow scientists to select the information necessary for their research instantaneously from any database in the world, analyze it, and display the results in a readily usable format. It should be no surprise that the key to the system is ontology. Ontological systems have proven to revolutionize the way we share data, and the technology is attracting attention across the globe.
Even though ontology development is attracting attention worldwide, there are plenty of obstacles to face as well. It is nice to see such research focused on creating one super database for science.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
