Genetic research continues to explore and discover, all with the help of technology. The ability to conduct genome-wide association studies (GWAS) has enabled new exploration of how genetic variations contribute to health and disease etiology.

7th Space Interactive brought this interesting information to our attention in their article, “Applying semantic web technologies for phenome-wide scan using an electronic health record linked Biobank.” Due to these and other technological advances, several academic medical centers are forming “biobanks” where biospecimens that are linked to personal health information are collected and stored. They are studying how emerging semantic web technologies can be applied in conjunction with clinical and genotype data.

Semantic technology provides another service by using common terminology and natural language processing to make the data more comprehensive, and available.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.