Bio Job Blog : Bio Jobs : Biotechnology Jobs : Biopharmaceutical Jobs : Bioscience, Biotech Jobs : Bio Job Blog : Biocareer : Bio-Business Training, Biotechnology Training : Jobs in Biology : Internships in Biology : Internships in Biotechnology

In 2009, I posted an article that described the salient and beneficial features of many of the biomedical search engines that had been developed for life scientists conducting laboratory research. While attending the Experimental Biology Meeting earlier this year I discovered a newly developed biomedical search engine called Quertle. After, watching Quertle in action, I was convinced that it was one of the best innovations to hit the life sciences field since the introduction of plasmid purification kits (yeah I know I am dating myself).                                    

Unlike most of its competitors, Quertle uses semantic-driven text analytics to find conceptual relationships between documents—not just query terms scattered though out a document. For example, suppose you want to find information on diseases of aging. Your query "diseases of aging" on other sites might find an article where "disease" is in the first sentence and "aging" is in the last sentence, perhaps even in the references. Consequently, a large number of the results will be irrelevant. In contrast, Quertle’s smart relationship-based search finds and presents those documents where the author has asserted a relationship between "disease" and "aging", such as "disease associated with aging". This gives you the results that are truly relevant, with the important facts nicely highlighted (Try it). Then, Quertle takes it even further; its proprietary Power Terms^™ and algorithms that automatically identify key concepts in the documents allow users to quickly conduct highly targeted, relevant literature searches and intuitive ways to explore them (Try this Power Term search and check out the list of diseases found). 

Quertle’s powerful easy-to-use searching covers all of PubMed, an expanding collection of full-text articles (including BioMed Central and Open Access articles in PubMed Central), biomedical news, and even whitepapers and reports from different companies. The most recent Quertle software upgrade added TOXLINE and NIH RePORTER databases to it search repertoire.

Recognizing that access to full-text journal articles is of paramount importance to all literature searches, the latest version of Quertle now supports link resolver systems. By using Quertle’s new, displayed “My Library” link users can easily and seamlessly access their institutions’ library holdings. Recognition of individual users’ academic institution is accomplished by identifying user IP addresses (provided by the library) or through special Quertle links offered to the different libraries. Interested librarians can contact Quertle to get their institution added to the Quertle list.

Quertle’s developers are veterans of the life sciences field and understand the rigorous challenges facing laboratory researchers. Their goal was to make literature searching easier, more powerful and less time consuming. Check it out and let me know what YOU think!!!

Until next time.....

Good Luck and Good Searching!!!!!!!!!!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

In the February issue of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News, J. Leslie Glick a former CEO of Genex and veteran of the biotechnology industry put forward a novel solution to financial crisis that is currently gripping the life sciences industry and the rest of the US economy. Dr. Glick proposed that the US government ought to consider injecting taxpayer monies into venture capital firms (VC) which, he believes, would foster creation of new companies, create more jobs, stimulate the ailing economy and also provide the government with an outstanding return on its investment.

According to Dr. Glick, “historical results reported by the National Venture Capital Association for the 20 year period ending December 31, 2007, show an annualized return of 16.7% to investors in some 1,860 U.S. venture capital and private equity partnerships. If the U.S. government had made annual investments of $10 billion in VC firms throughout the U.S. during that 20year period, the $200 billion total investment would have yielded a total return of almost $1.5 trillion.” Further, he asserts that according to the  International Trade Administration of the Department of Commerce, from 1970 to 2000, U.S. VC firms invested over $270 billion in more than 16,000 companies. In 2000, the surviving VC-backed companies employed 7.6 million people, representing 5.9% of all U.S. jobs, and generated sales of $1.3 trillion, accounting for 13.1% of the U.S. GDP.

This financial upside sound enticing but who is going to keep track of the money and keep an eye on how and what the VCs are investing in? Dr. Glick proposes creation of a non-partisan funding mechanism, possibly overseen by an independent panel of business people that would disburse $10 to $25 billion annually of taxpayer’s dollars to vetted and certified VC firms. Because of its investment, the US government would become a limited partner in these firms and could direct them to invest in technologies that would help to reduce health care costs, develop energy alternatives or improve food production capacity. While this proposal is unprecedented and controversial, we are living in extremely uncertain financial times that may necessitate innovative and out-of-the-box solutions to restore normalcy to the US economy. That said, all proposals—no mater how unconventional or outrageous—ought to be carefully evaluated and vetted to determine whether or not they have merit to help overcome our deepening recession.

Kudos to Dr. Glick!

Until next time,

Good Luck and Good Investing!!!!!!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link