9
Information resources and software tools for biomarker discovery
This chapter will discuss key information resources, software tools, data exchange approaches, analysis workflow platforms and bioinformatic infrastructures for supporting biomarker discovery research. Different open- and closed-source systems relevant to biomarker discovery will be introduced. Other key topics to be discussed are: knowledge bases for guiding the search and evaluation of new biomarkers, and extensible and integrative software systems for assisting different tasks in biomarker discovery research. It will also present examples of relevant investigations, solutions and applications in biomarker discovery.
9.1 Biomarker discovery frameworks: key software and information resources
The great diversity of molecular and clinical information resources not only demands more advanced data analysis techniques, but also flexible infrastructures to share and interconnect these resources and tools. This requires the design of efficient, more reliable and extensible software, as well as mechanisms to deploy both human- and machine-readable information resources and analysis services. Such infrastructures also require global, national and regional initiatives to promote human collaboration through sustainable bio-computing platforms and innovation networks. Bioinformaticians and computational scientists have responsibilities that go beyond the implementation and/or operation of data acquisition, tracking, storage ...
