# Gene Wiki: A community-maintained knowledge base of biomedical information

> **NIH NIH R01** · SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, THE · 2021 · $517,363

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
The biomedical research enterprise is incredibly productive, generating new knowledge at an unprecedented
pace. However, as a community, we do a relatively poor job organizing and managing that knowledge so that it
is maximally useful for the design and interpretation of other experiments. Scientific research is most efficient
when new hypotheses are informed by the totality of past findings, and that scientific knowledge is Findable,
Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR). Unfortunately the vast majority of research is published only
in free-text, unstructured journal articles, rendering the findings very difficult to integrate and compute upon.
This proposal describes the use of crowdsourcing to address this challenge in biomedical knowledge
management. It specifically proposes to leverage Wikidata, which has the goal of creating a comprehensive
knowledge base that both humans and computers can both read and edit. Wikidata is run by the same
organization that runs Wikipedia, and like its sister project, it employs the principle of crowdsourcing to tackle a
grand challenge in information management. Both Wikipedia and Wikidata invite and empower the community
at large to collaboratively add, edit, and refine content.
In this proposal, we continue our work to create the world's largest open and FAIR knowledge base of
biomedical information within Wikidata. This proposal include three Specific Aims. First, we will improve both
the quantity and quality of biomedical information in Wikidata. Quantity will be increased by loading several key
biomedical vocabularies and ontologies, and data quality will be made more rigorous by the introduction of
formal and computable data models. Second, we will facilitate and incentivize contributions of data by third-
party data contributors. This Aim will be achieved by extending our python programming library for reading
from and writing to Wikidata, and by creating automated reports that notify resource providers when new
relevant content is added or edited. Third, we will also seek to encourage contributions from domain experts
using targeted incentives. Specifically, this aim will develop interfaces to Wikidata that provide integrated data
reports that are otherwise unavailable, as well as extend the Gene Wiki Reviews series of invited reviews,
which rewards contributions with traditional metrics of academic achievement. Finally, underlying these three
Specific Aims will be a Driving Biological Project focusing in infectious disease research, which will ensure the
tools and resources developed will have practical benefit to discovery-oriented research projects.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10147086
- **Project number:** 5R01GM089820-13
- **Recipient organization:** SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, THE
- **Principal Investigator:** ANDREW I SU
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $517,363
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2010-08-01 → 2023-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10147086

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10147086, Gene Wiki: A community-maintained knowledge base of biomedical information (5R01GM089820-13). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10147086. Licensed CC0.

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