Staff Report
Researchers from UNM's Cancer Research and Treatment Center are collaborating with computational linguists from NMSU and Sandia National Laboratories on an innovative "smart" computer system that will speed up the process of analyzing volumes of data in new genetic research.
Cheryl Willman, director of the center, said that everyone involved realizes the importance of directly combining data generated by new experiments with published literature on genetic research to speed up the analysis of experimental results.
"Computer tools that can deeply understand these texts will enable searches of tremendous power for researchers," Willman said in a UNM Health Science Center press release. "In fact, access to these tools will increase the effectiveness of our senior researchers and enable junior researchers to perform at what we consider expert levels."
Researchers at New Mexico State University's Computing Research Laboratory already laid the foundation for the state-of-the-art computer system, developing a computer interface to search vast databases of information for cancer research. The interface development is sponsored by a grant from Sandia National Laboratories.
The proposed development of the computer system will help spread knowledge of a variety of medical fields including biochemistry, oncology and a language analysis component that will make the system better perform searches.
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George Davidson, a researcher at Sandia National Laboratories, said several years of joint research between his offices and UNM have shown how critical research of published literature is.
Davidson said text mining, the enabling research tool of the future system, will help in the next step of the program - the shift from expression studies to mechanisms and drug targets.
"The collaboration with NMSU is already producing results, and we can see how it will lead to a real breakthrough, which will enable researchers to make rapid headway," Davidson said in the press release. "Powerful text mining will multiply the value of the human genome project by a hundredfold."
Jim Cowie, director of NMSU's Computing Research Laboratory, said there is a large amount of research that still needs to be performed so program users can capture just a fraction of the knowledge and expertise of biochemists and oncologists.
"We would like to build prototypes, each one of which is useful," Cowie said in the press release. "We will have the luxury of adding these features in various stages of development."
A smarter system would be helpful to UNM Cancer Research and Treatment Center researchers who, for example, have analyzed DNA samples from children with leukemia and found that certain genes tend to be active in these patients. The new computer system will allow researchers to learn about research conducted by other scientists.
According to a source from the center, the computer system will provide advanced education for student researchers that was not previously available.
