Tool to Integrate Genomic and Proteomic Data of Aging

拟议的工作涉及以下问题：虽然现有的生物数据库都经过精心管理，并通过与其他数据库中记录的链接相互连接，但这些记录之间的导航仍然是一个耗时的人工过程。例如，生物学家可能想知道，在过去的两年里，其他研究人员已经发现了哪些与老年相关的蛋白质，以及关于这些蛋白质的知识。为了回答这个问题，生物学家必须识别相关的数据源，然后手动查询和整合来自每个单独来源的答案。虽然查询过程可以通过脚本自动化，但是以后扩展或更改该过程需要编写新的脚本。此外，脚本在捕获生物专业知识的程度上是有限的，以便它可以被重用于未来的相关查询。最后，除非明确地写出来这样做，否则脚本不会 帮助用户过滤检索到的数据并解决不一致的问题。我们提出的工作旨在开发计算基础设施，使用基于XML的Web技术和数据库/中介技术。该基础设施将使用户能够回答需要来自多个源的数据的问题，而无需明确用户对特定于源的详细信息（包括位置、数据结构和计算接口）的了解。使用户能够提出和执行这样的查询的相同基础设施还将促进用户应用他们的专业知识来过滤、排名和解决查询结果中的不一致。研究的结果将是设计基础设施，以满足任何需要访问多个异构数据源的计算发现任务。我们通过以下研究目标来实现这些目标： 目的1：设计一个中介基础设施，用于衰老的遗传学和蛋白质组学研究。 目标2：通过探索多种数据来源，加强获取与年龄有关的疾病、失调和残疾的信息。

The proposed work addresses the following issue: although existing biological databases are individually well-curated and interconnected through links to records in other databases, navigation between those records remains a time-intensive, manual process. A biologist may want to know, for example, what geriatric-related proteins have been identified and what knowledge about those proteins has been collected by other researchers over, say, the past two years. To answer this, the biologist must identify relevant data sources and then manually query and integrate answers from each individual source. Although the query process can be automated with scripts, extending or altering the process later requires writing new scripts. Further, scripts are limited in the degree to which they capture biological expertise so that it can be reused for future related queries. Finally, unless explicitly written to do so, scripts do not assist the user in filtering retrieved data and resolving inconsistencies. Our proposed work seeks to develop computational infrastructure that uses XML-based web technology and database/mediation technology. This infrastructure will enable a user to answer questions that require data from multiple sources without explicit user knowledge of source-specific details including location, data structure, and computational interface. The same infrastructure that enables the user to pose and execute such queries will also facilitate users to apply their expertise to filter, rank, and resolve inconsistencies in the query results. The outcome of the research will be designing the infrastructure to any computational discovery task that requires access to multiple, heterogeneous data sources. We achieve these objectives through the following resarch aims: Aim 1 : Design a mediation infrastructure for research on the Genetics and Proteomics of aging. Aim 2: Enhance the access to information related to age-related diseases, disorders and disabilities through the exploration of multiple data sources.