Selecting biomedical data sources according to user preferences

Motivation: Biologists are now faced with the problem of integrating information from multiple heterogeneous public sources with their own experimental data contained in individual sources. The selection of the sources to be considered is thus critically important. Results: Our aim is to support biologists by developing a module based on an algorithm that presents a selection of sources relevant to their query and matched to their own preferences. We approached this task by investigating the characteristics of biomedical data and introducing several preference criteria useful for bioinformaticians. This work was carried out in the framework of a project which aims to develop an integrative platform for the multiple parametric analysis of cancer. We illustrate our study through an elementary biomedical query occurring in a CGH analysis scenario. Availability: http://www.lri.fr/~cohen/dss/dss.html