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18/11/2014 - General information

DisGeNET included in the Linking Open Data (LOD) diagram

Currently, DisGeNET contains more than 300,000 links between almost 17,000 human genes and 13,000 diseases.

The platform for the analysis of human diseases and their genes DisGeNET, developed by the Integrative Biomedical Informatics research group at GRIB (IMIM-UPF) appears for the first time in the Linking Open Data (LOD) linking diagram.

This type of diagram shows sets of data in Linked Data format, which is used by the World Wide Web to link structured and related data. Linked Data is the best way to showcase, share and connect data, information and knowledge on the semantic web through technologies such as Uniform Resource Identifiers (or URIs, web resource identifiers) and Resource Description Framework (or RDF, a model to represent information in a structured way).

The Semantic Web is an extension of the current Web that aims to connect data directly and for these data and their links to be comprehensible for computers by using semantics encoded in ontologies.

The presence of DisGeNET in this diagram is important since it shows that the DisGeNET database is published following the Linked Data principles and gives it more visibility and makes it easier to detect by the diagram users.

The DisGeNET platform is led by Laura I. Furlong and Ferran Sanz, coordinators of the Integrative Biomedical Informatics Research Group and contains more than 300,000 associations between nearly 17,000 human genes and 13,000 diseases. DisGeNET is a publicly available resource that offers a set of tools to support different types of users (bioinformaticians, biologists, health care practitioners). The DisGeNET Linked Data version is an alternative way to access the platform and provide new opportunities for querying and linking DisGeNET data with other Linked Datasets published in the Semantic Web.

The Linked Open Data movement (W3C) is an emerging phenomenon that started over the last decade and aims at extending the current Web by publishing open datasets in Linked Data format. The Linking Open Data (LOD) diagram offers a general overview of linked datasets available on the Web. The Semantic Web and the Linked Data principles are emerging approaches that are gaining adoption in the Life Sciences for use, share, integration and exploration of biomedical data.

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