BioGPS:A crowdsourced portal for gene-centric online resources

描述（由申请人提供）：本提案描述了基于众包原则的基因注释门户网站BioGPS （http://biogps.org）的持续维护和发展。基因组尺度的科学在对基因功能进行公正的调查方面正变得越来越普遍。目前存在高通量基因变异、基因表达、蛋白质表达、蛋白质修饰、表观遗传变异和其他分子特征的技术。利用这些方法，科学家可以快速识别出一组与他们感兴趣的生物系统相关的候选基因。然而，了解这些基因的现有知识仍然是一个重大挑战。有数百甚至数千个在线网站提供基因注释信息，所有这些网站都有一些相对于其他网站部分重叠的信息子集。创建BioGPS是为了简单地浏览基因注释资源的景观。BioGPS通过促进两个关键原则来实现这一点——社区可扩展性和用户可定制性。社区可扩展性意味着我们授权BioGPS用户社区中的任何用户向BioGPS添加新内容。用户可定制性意味着我们允许每个用户根据他们的个人需求定制BioGPS。基于这些原则，BioGPS已经发展成为一个功能强大的基因门户网站，广泛应用于遗传学和基因组学领域。这个建议建立在前一个项目阶段的成功基础上。作为一个建立在众包基础上的web应用程序，本提案侧重于两种持续增长和积极影响生物医学研究的机制。首先，我们将采取一些策略来更好地吸引新用户和留住现有用户。这些策略包括实现新功能以提高可用性、开发重点突出的扩展工作以及引入社会网络动态。本提案所追求的第二个策略是增加新的机制，让用户为BioGPS社区做出贡献。具体来说，我们将围绕分析和共享基因列表创建一套新的功能，以补充我们现有的对单基因的强调。BioGPS是生物医学研究的一个有用工具。该提案的成功完成将导致用户社区和通过BioGPS提供的功能集的持续增长。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal describes the continued maintenance and development of BioGPS (http://biogps.org), a gene annotation portal based on the principle of crowdsourcing. Genome-scale science is becoming increasingly common for performing unbiased surveys of gene function. Technologies exist for high-throughput interrogation of genetic variation, gene expression, protein expression, protein modifications, epigenetic variation, and other molecular features. Using these approaches, scientists can rapidly identify a set of candidate genes that are relevant to their biological system of interest. However, understanding current knowledge of those genes remains a significant challenge. There are hundreds if not thousands of online sites with gene annotation information, all having some partially overlapping subset of information relative to the other sites. BioGPS was created to simply navigating the landscape of gene annotation resources. BioGPS does this by promoting two key principles - community extensibility and user customizability. Community extensibility means that we empower any user in the BioGPS user community to add new content to BioGPS. User customizability means that we allow each individual user to tailor BioGPS to their individual needs. Building on these principles, BioGPS has evolved into a highly functional gene portal that is widely used in the genetics and genomics community. This proposal builds on the previous project period's success. As a web application built on crowdsourcing, this proposal focuses on two mechanisms for continuing growth and positively impacting biomedical research. First, we will pursue several strategies for better attracting new users and retaining existing users. These strategies include implementing new features to improve usability, developing focused outreach efforts, and introducing social networking dynamics. The second strategy pursued in this proposal is to add new mechanisms for users to contribute to the BioGPS community. Specifically, we will create a new set of features around analyzing and sharing gene lists to complement our existing emphasis on single genes. BioGPS is a useful tool for biomedical research. Successful completion of this proposal will result in continued growth of both the user community and the feature set available through BioGPS.