Generating novel insights in biology

Earlier this year, Thomson Scientific acquired Canadian-based life sciences data management company Unleashed Informatics. The reason is simple: we believe that biotechnology companies are helping to drive innovation. This puts even greater importance on the quality of the information available to this market.

As tools and techniques have improved, the information sources haven’t kept up – they’ve simply accumulated more content. Researchers may be faced with a vast amount of fragmented data held on multiple databases in incompatible data types. Companies may even be expected to assemble and deploy their own solutions, discouraging data convergence.

So the challenge isn’t finding information, it’s leveraging it intelligently so that it promotes innovation. It’s a wood-for-the-trees situation. If all you can see is the data, you’re not going to be able to look through it to the solution. Unleashed was already highly respected for its BIND database, the largest repository of value-added biomolecular interaction records in the world. We knew there was so much more this data could be doing.

Data integration

We’re witnessing a shift away from the idea of creating a library of chemicals and seeing whether any of them have a promising effect to target generation. It’s this thought-based approach that makes the kind of service we provide ever more central.

Thomson Scientific is an integration enabler. We take disparate information sources and slot them together to see what insights they can provide. By building intelligent links between data types, performing the analysis, and providing the abstracts and thought-leadership that puts the information into context, we can promote new ways of thinking.

Our goal is to create a single, fully-integrated workflow platform in which any content, including public sources, third party and proprietary data, can be added in, mapped intelligently into the big picture, and delivered as each user needs it.

Focused information

Our first goal with Unleashed was to integrate BIND with the nine million biological sequences in our GENESEQ database, a process we’ve achieved with the BONDplus database that was launched in August 2007.

BONDplus equips the researcher to look beyond the biological sequence to the interaction, taxonomy, publication, annotation, domain and cross-reference data that surrounds it. In one place, you have all the relevant biological and IP relationships for your molecule of interest. This will provide a significant advantage to biological researchers and their managers.

Outlook

BONDplus is a vitally important first step. Our next aim is to map this into a broader workflow solution that will complement Thomson Pharma. Launched in early 2005, Thomson Pharma is already unrivalled in terms of the latter part of the pipeline, covering areas from intellectual property, literature and news through to brand optimisation and support for the generics market.

Our vision for this data is greater still. We want to do for biological research what IDdb did for chemical drug research: to generate insights, not just storehouse data. We are constantly engaged in building our analytic capabilities and functionality, and looking for ways in which we can make the data work smarter all along the pipeline.

The really exciting thing will be how the interface between all the different content types evolves, the way we link them together using new analytical tools, predictive mapping etc. We are creating a research space where smart, focused thinking is able to drive greater efficiency and lead to improved innovation and success.

That’s what information sharing always intended to achieve, and Thomson continues to lead the way in realising it.

BIO

Jon Brett-Harris is Executive Vice President of Pharmaceutical and Chemistry Markets for Thomson Scientific. His management and leadership experience includes 20 years spent in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. He is now responsible for key Thomson Scientific offerings in this sector, including the Liquent, IDRAC, IDdb, Newport and CMR businesses.