‘conceptual biology’, the iterative process of analysing existing facts available in published literature and other datasources
January 14th, 2006Article by Julie Barnes and Jessica Robertson @ http://www.lifescienceit.com/biwaut02ontologies.htm
“One of the activities essential for drug discovery research is ‘conceptual
biology’, the iterative process of analysing existing facts available in
published literature and other datasources, to validate current hypotheses
or to generate new ones (see references at end). Opportunities arise by
the simple fact that we have at our disposal, volumes of published data
that have been created for one purpose but, in light of subsequent
information, can then be re-used in quite a different context, to form new
concepts and hypotheses. More often than not, critical connections can
come from areas of science seemingly unrelated to that of immediate
interest. ”