Collaboration to Launch Human Protein Knowledge Platform

An online knowledge platform on human proteins has recently been developed, providing life scientists with a broad spectrum of information on all human proteins.

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (Lausanne) and GeneBio (Geneva, Switzerland) recently announced the launch of the platform called neXtProt. With already over 51,000 unique visitors since its first Beta release in January of 2011, neXtProt is expected to become the central resource for any life scientist who requires high-quality information on human proteins in the context of modern biomedical research.

SIB and GeneBio’s scientists, software developers, and biocurators have been working closely together since 2009 under the leadership of Prof. Amos Bairoch, to address one of the key problems faced by life scientists today: making sense of the huge body of human protein-related data in order to facilitate knowledge creation and scientific innovation. Prof. Bairoch remarked, “Technological advances have allowed life scientists to accumulate enormous amounts of data. It is therefore essential to provide researchers with the tools to fish out knowledge from such an ocean of data. We are building neXtProt to answer such a challenge.”

At the content level, neXtProt aims to be a comprehensive resource on human proteins, including information such as proteins’ function, subcellular location, expression, interactions, and role in diseases. Rigorous standards are applied before any data are added to neXtProt, ensuring a commitment to Swiss quality.

neXtProt builds upon the complete human proteins-related information contained in the UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot knowledgebase, to which unique information relative to protein expression and variants has been integrated by the SIB biocurators. neXtProt provides user-friendly tools to access this unparalleled content. The powerful and intuitive search functionality combined with innovative data representation simplifies data mining. Users can personalize their discoveries of proteins and sets of proteins in context using favorites and tags.

Nasri Nahas, CEO of GeneBio, said, “With second-to-none quality data and a set of intuitive features, we believe that neXtProt will enhance scientific discovery and innovation.”

SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics is an academic not-for-profit foundation that provides bioinformatics activities throughout Switzerland. Its two-fold mission is to provide world-class core bioinformatics resources to the national and international life sciences research community in key fields such as genomics, proteomics and systems biology, as well as to lead and coordinate the field of bioinformatics in Switzerland. The Foundation produces state-of-the-art software for the life sciences research community, as well as carefully annotated databases.

Geneva Bioinformatics (GeneBio) SA is a bioinformatics company providing the life science community with world-class software that bridges the gap between information gathering and knowledge generation. The company offers a suite of software platforms and knowledge bases targeted at small molecules screening and protein research.

Related Links:
SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
GeneBio
neXtProt