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Background
information |
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Throughout
the biological and biomedical sciences prescriptive checklists
specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental
results are beginning to find favour with experimentalists,
analysts, publishers and funders alike. However, such ‘minimum
information’ (MI) checklists are usually developed independently,
from within particular biologically- or technologically-delineated
domains. Consequently, the full range of checklists can be difficult
to establish without intensive searching, and tracking their
evolution is non-trivial; they are also inevitably partially-redundant
one against another, and where they overlap arbitrary decisions
on wording and substructuring make integration difficult. This
presents significant difficulties for the users of checklists;
for example, in the area of systems biology, where data from
multiple biological domains and technology platforms are routinely
combined. We offer a common portal to such MI checklists; to
act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the
range of extant projects, foster collaborative development and
ultimately promote gradual integration. |
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Figure
One. A generalized view of the structure of investigative
projects in the life sciences from the MGED
RSBI working group. © Image copyrighted.
This
figure asserts that an Investigation (of a particular
medical syndrome, environmental effect, etc.) consists
of one or more linked Studies (each in the context
of a particular biological domain such as toxicology or environmental
science) that themselves consist of one or more Assays
(analysis of material generated or collected for the study, perhaps
by use of an omics techniques such as proteomics).
N.B.
Differing levels
of detail may be required by different domains; for example, on
the origin and history of the biological material, contrast the
needs of genomic sequencing (which strain / cell line / cultivar
/ etc.) with the needs of metabolomics (feeding schedules,
etc.). |
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