MedMiner: An Internet Tool for Filtering and Organizing Biomedical Information

The trend toward high throughput techniques in molecular biology and the explosion of online scientific data threaten to overwhelm the ability of researchers to take full advantage of available information. This problem is particularly severe in the rapidly expanding area of gene expression experiments, for example, those carried out with cDNA microarrays or oligonucleotide chips. We present an internet-based hypertext program, MedMiner, which organizes and filters large amounts of textual and structured information gleaned from public databases. We demonstrate the value of the approach for the analysis of gene expression data, but the technique can also be extended to other areas involving molecular genetic or pharmacological information.