The Life Science Home Page

Over the years, tools have been developed to deal with this issue. Computers and their information handling programs -- word processors, spreadsheets, database tools. Cables and electronics to move data farther and faster, satellites to link far spread locations. Yet despite all these efforts, databases have become bigger and harder to get at. The community of Science has become larger and more splintered as specializations have appeared everywhere.

The Internet originally built as a partial answer to the need of Science professionals to communicate connected major centers of learning in the world electronically. It allowed for the use of simple mail programs and file transfer utilities to transfer vital data. Recently, with the creation of the Web, capacity greatly expanded, to include many types of "data", including audio, graphics and even real-time video. This increased capacity however has come at a price -- a much larger audience in which anyone with access to a phone can now join in on the conversation.

The increased capacity of the Web has led to a troubling phenomenon -- increasing amounts of information to access. Anyone is now capable of becoming a publisher. Want people to read your thesis? Put in on the Web. Someone will run into it -- eventually. More and more, scientists are finding themselves spending increasing amounts of time looking for "stuff" they really want to see.

Faced with this issue, developers began to create tools to ease the search process. Bookmark lists were generated, as the very browsing tools used to visit the Web (Netscape, Mosaic, Microsoft Explorer, etc.) had this feature built into them. Web pages with extensive and updated lists of important Internet addresses, such as Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com), quickly became the most popular places to visit in the Web as everyone desperately tried to keep pace with the growth of new information. Additional instruments including Web spiders (http://www.webcrawler.com), search engines (http://www.lycos.com) and meta indexes (http://www.search.com) were quickly added to the repertoire of access tools, but the Web has continued to expand at an increasing rate. There are now over 40,000,000 pages of information published around the world!

One offshoot of the power of the newest tools for getting at sites on the Internet has been that no site has any clear advantage in being found. Depending on the keywords, a thesis can be located just as easily as the NIH home page. The issue of a "Visibility Factor", has become perhaps one of the greatest challenges of the Web as a valuable tool for professionals.

A new generation of Web sites has begun to appear across the Internet trying to deal with these issues (see - http://www.sciweb.com; http://www.tp.umu.se/TIPTOP; http://techweb.cmp.com - for examples). These sites organize diverse information into a central location. Rather than create novel content on their own, they collate facts and present them in an easy to use format for the reader. They are the professional's America Onlines of the Web.

At their most basic, Second Generation Web sites provide catalogues of other Web sites. They point to databases and resources. They provide gateways and access for information located on widespread computers. They can announce the locations of new commercial or academic Web sites and can act as clearinghouses for such pointers. These sites have the ability to directly query the public for page pointers and present them in Web format to the industry. This makes them invaluable as sources of public input.

Professional-oriented Web sites can present industry-related information to readers. This can include databases, scientific updates, business and financial news, government reports, patent approvals, product updates. Depending on the industry, subsets of information could be organized and made available. For example, the drug development industry closely follows clinical trials data, FDA regulatory approvals, licensing agreements and scientific breakthroughs. All of these could be integrated into a Web Site with appropriate pointers. Thus an article describing the approval of a new drug by the FDA, could be linked to information about the company making the pharmaceutical, to scientific articles describing basic research surrounding its discovery, and to clinical trials data used for approval. The potential list is endless and points to what is best in the integration of information afforded by the Web technology. It is precisely this form of integration that is presently driving the exponential growth of the Intranet in many networked companies.

Central sites offer a platform for advertisers to the industry to present their wares. Since visitors turning to such a site are generally well characterized, they represent a prime target audience for companies with something to sell. Such sites offer opportunities for online market research, generation of contacts for sales representatives, and as technology progresses, for online sales. The creation of valuable e-mail distribution lists can be envisaged. The presentation of company wares online to the community is in this case quite welcome. In the case of the Life Science industry, new technologies, reagents and software constantly appear. Keeping up with this change is critical and knowing about the latest is a first step in the process. Vendors are welcome to this industry.

Professional sites offer the ability to provide an integrated platform for communications facilities. Advanced software for secure file transfer is already available. The Web is now at the edge of usability for online conferencing - either by keyboard chat lines, audio links through Web-enabled phones, whiteboarding facilities and video links. In a sense, these new Web sites have the ability to become the online office centers of the future.

In one scenario, imagine colleagues located in Detroit, Paris and Sydney sharing auradiogram data on a common whiteboard while discussing, an associated chart uploaded to each member's file transfer box, over a conference webphone hook up. And, of course, the entire conference would be handled over a secure line provided by the Web site provider on a lease basis. Alternately, imagine an equipment company presenting its latest product release on a Web " booth "along with charts of its product, tech sheets, and a video show of its capabilities. Tied in to the presentation would be contact information for local sales reps, availability data obtained from the corporate shipping department and a response sheet for customer input directed to the company marketing department. Adding a weekly forum during which a company representative would be available online to answer questions would greatly enhance the ability to respond to the customer. All of this is now possible.

Second Generation Web sites offer enormous potential for presenting a large store of information in a well organized format. Modern Web sites have the ability to present a wide range of data. Beyond the straight textual format, it is now possible to present graphics, audio and video tracks in almost real time. Integration between these media on a Web page is easy to achieve, with the right tools and experience, allowing various sources to be combined into a comprehensive display. The real strength of central sites comes from their ability to provide the necessary tools of the communication trade to effortlessly integrate a presentation or conference. No need for every lab, office or company to recreate an expensive and complex infrastructure.

Much of this technology is new. It will require a major marketing effort by the Second Generation Web sites to generate awareness of these novel tools and the use to which they can be put. Input will also be required from the professionals using these services to help sculpt the new information medium and to closely match the needs of the users. In this way the technology can mature rapidly and provide the greatest return on the investment of all parties. The next several years will be an exciting time to participate in the creation of a new environment for information exchange for the entire community.

Dr. Edward Jakobovits is President of SciWeb Inc., (http://www.sciweb.com), an Internet-based information and communication service for life science professionals. He received his Ph.D. in Genetics from the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Israel. He was a post doctoral fellow with Dr. Harold Varmus in the University of California at San Francisco and then moved to Genentech for a post doctoral term with Dr. Arthur Levinson. He worked as the head of the Molecular Biology Group in Neurex Corp. in Menlo Park before moving to the Research Department at Syva Co., the diagnostic wing of Syntex Corp. before it was sold to Behring Diagnostics.