KnowEnG: a knowledge engine for genomics.

Journal: Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA
Published Date:

Abstract

We describe here the vision, motivations, and research plans of the National Institutes of Health Center for Excellence in Big Data Computing at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The Center is organized around the construction of "Knowledge Engine for Genomics" (KnowEnG), an E-science framework for genomics where biomedical scientists will have access to powerful methods of data mining, network mining, and machine learning to extract knowledge out of genomics data. The scientist will come to KnowEnG with their own data sets in the form of spreadsheets and ask KnowEnG to analyze those data sets in the light of a massive knowledge base of community data sets called the "Knowledge Network" that will be at the heart of the system. The Center is undertaking discovery projects aimed at testing the utility of KnowEnG for transforming big data to knowledge. These projects span a broad range of biological enquiry, from pharmacogenomics (in collaboration with Mayo Clinic) to transcriptomics of human behavior.

Authors

  • Saurabh Sinha
    Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA Institute of Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA sinhas@illinois.edu.
  • Jun Song
    Division of Gastroenterology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
  • Richard Weinshilboum
    Department of Pharmacology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
  • Victor Jongeneel
    Institute of Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
  • Jiawei Han
    Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA Institute of Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.