A National Institutes of Health (NIH) program is planned to consolidate a massive amount of scattered biomedical research data. It was recently announced that the program will include the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, which received a $9.2 million grant. The Times of San Diego brought this news to our attention in their articl.e, “Money Flows to UCSD for ‘Big Data’ Bio-Med Search Engine.”

The NIH announced that a dozen centers for data would be created around the United States. In addition to that exciting news, the Scripps Research Institute and the Scripps Translational Science Institute said they would take part in a center to be established at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

A UCSD-led team plans to develop a strategy for cataloging and indexing biomedical datasets. Dataset indexing is considered a vital step toward being able to build a searchable online digital library.

Melody K. Smith

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