Research resources across US found through new search tool

Groundbreaking biomedical research requires access to cutting-edge scientific resources that in many cases are invisible beyond the laboratories or institutions where they were developed. On May 2nd, 2011, The eagle-i Consortium launched an innovative prototype of a national research resource discovery network—one that will help biomedical scientists search for and find previously invisible, but highly valuable, resources.

Over the past two years, the nine-institution eagle-i Consortium which includes four RCMI institutions: Morehouse School of Medicine, University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, and the RTRN Data and Technology Coordinating Center (DTTC) at Jackson State University, has gathered resource information from research labs and core facilities. The result is a searchable database of over 35,000 resources including core facilities, services, instrumentation, model organisms (from mice to yeast), antibodies, cell lines, libraries, plasmids, and more.

The larger goal of this project, funded by the NIH and NCRR, is to encourage research facilities to share data on their research resources with the hopes that greater visibility and access to these tools will foster biomedical research nationally, help reduce time-consuming and expensive duplication of resources, and accelerate the development of much needed diagnostics, treatments, and prevention strategies

What is the eagle-i research tool?

The eagle-i research tool is an innovative prototype of a national research resource discovery network—one that will help biomedical scientists search for and find previously invisible, but highly valuable, resources

Try out www.eagle-i.org/current, using the Institution login: institution-guest; Password: eagle-i-institution

What are features of eagle-i?

RTRN eagle-i is an informatics system for collecting and publishing information about biomedical research resources. It is composed of a "stack" of software with the following components:

• Data Entry Tools,
• Customized Repository,
• Network and
• Search Application.

To tackle the problem of discovering and publishing such a diverse array of biomedical resources, eagle–i implemented a unique architectural element – an ontology driven architecture. eagle-i employs a common centralized ontology in order to describe each resource type (Animals, Core Facilities, Human Health Studies, Research Reagents, Student Research Opportunities, and Human Cell and Tissue Repositories). Thus, the ontology serves as the single source of truth about all resource types, their properties and semantics. This allows RTRN eagle-i to incorporate new resource types simply by modeling them in the ontology.

What type of information is available?

• Animals
• Core Facilities
• Human Health Studies
• Research Reagents
• Student Research Opportunities (in development)
• Human Cell and Tissue Repositories (in development)

How will eagle-i impact RTRN?

Currently, four RCMI institutions (Morehouse School of Medicine, University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, University of Hawaii at Manoa and the RTRN Data and Technology Coordinating Center at Jackson State University) are members of the eagle-i Consortium which has developed and populated the research tool database. The RCMI institutions have provided data on their core facilities, services, instrumentation, model organisms, antibodies and more to ensure a robust search mechanism that can enhance scientists’ ability to identify research resources. Access to the eagle-i tool will enhance RCMI researchers’ ability to locate resources across the network and within other member institutions. The four sites will spearhead the deployment of the eagle-i research resource across the 14 remaining RCMI institutions enabling all of RTRN to identify and share resources across the Network as well as with other member institutions.

What are the benefits of eagle-i research tool?

• Allows researchers to identify resources within RCMI and non-RCMI institutions that can enhance their research efforts
• Enables managers of resources to list information about their resources online in a searchable format
• Facilitates conversations between researchers and resource managers regarding sharing of resources·
• Saves valuable time and expense in the research process through sharing·
• Can be the starting point for future collaborations

Will eagle-i be available to RCMI institutions which are not in the consortium?

The four RCMI consortium member sites are spearheading the deployment of the eagle-i research resource across the 14 remaining RCMI institutions that will enable all of RTRN to identify and share resources across the Network as well as with other member institutions. The target date for deployment is in the fall 2011.