BIOALMA NEWS

First Biomedical Search Engine to Provide Integrated Grant Information Across More Than 75 Institutions; Provides Valuable Resource to Locating Research Funding

Extending its ability to provide the easiest access to the latest research information available for the biomedical community, Bioalma today announced the ability to search grant award information within novo|seek. Novo|seek is the first biomedical search engine to provide integrated grant award information from more than 75 institutions including the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP).  This capability gives users an easier-to-use alternative to the NIH CRISP database when writing grants or searching for the most relevant literature and grant information during the research process.

For biomedical scientists and researchers, the ability to not only search the “who” (who is doing the research) and “what” (area of focus) of the biomedical research but the “how” of the research – the funding source – in a single website is an extremely valuable combination. The NIH awarded almost $30 billion in grants in 2008, and with the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), is expected to receive an additional $8.2 billion in extramural funding to help stimulate the U.S. economy through the support and advancement of scientific research. This means that now the need for insight into federally funded research is more important than ever.

“The ability to search for grant information during the biomedical literature search process is invaluable. Comparing the grant and literature published on certain topics can give great insight into areas like epigenetics or embryonic stem cell research,” said Ramon Alonso-Allende, director of marketing and business development, Bioalma. “The combination of novo|seek’s powerful text mining technology and newly integrated grant information offers a one-stop shop for researchers and scientists looking for scientific literature and the associated grants, making the overall research process as seamless as possible. This is just one of many valuable enhancements we plan to add to novo|seek this year.”

Novo|seek offers a powerful alternative to traditional information retrieval systems such as PubMed and is aimed at a variety of audiences within the biomedical community, including students, medical doctors, medical librarians, and biomedical scientists and researchers. By leveraging SciSight, delivered by G&S Discovery, within the novo|seek search engine, users have the ability to search and view overviews of life science research grants from both U.S. and Canadian sources.

“Our goal with SciSight is to help scientists gain a better understanding by enabling them to search and find awarded grants within their area of research,” said Mark Walker, vice president, G&S Discovery. “Providing this grant award information in partnership with novo|seek is a great way for us to make this resource available to more scientists.”