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FORUM Mining Information from Mountains of Scientific Data Robin Lucas "Enter one or more search terms." Barely glancing at the familiar PubMed homepage, I dutifully typed the name of a gene related to my thesis project and pressed Enter. A few seconds later, a list of references spilled off the screen. Scrolling down the list, I was startled to discover a rather bland but pertinent title for an article published in 1996. I felt certain that I must have encountered the title many times in the past three years, but it had never caught my attention. While reading the abstract, I began to question a model that I had long used to explain some of my data. The results reported in this paper suggested a whole new set of experiments, and I wondered how I could have overlooked a paper with such clear implications for my own research.     At least part of the answer was right in front of me—my computer screen was filled with more than a hundred other titles dealing directly with my gene of interest. This is just one aspect of my thesis project, and hundreds of other references about equally important topics compete for my attention. Meanwhile, my desk is covered with a pile of journals that I have yet to read, and in my adviser's office, a variety of recent journals packed with potentially relevant information line the shelves. The wall outside her office is filled with seminar notices, and the department bulletin board announces even more talks, meetings, data clubs, retreats, and symposia. Even if I spent all my time attending seminars and reading journals, I could never fully absorb the information surrounding me. Narrowing Knowledge One obvious solution is to ignore information that is not directly related to my own work. Unfortunately, a consequence of this choice is that my knowledge becomes more and more specialized. At a recent recruiting event for the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program, I ran into classmates I hadn't seen in nearly a year. During our first year, we all attended the same required courses. After joining our respective labs, however, we began to attend different seminars, read entirely different journals, and study completely unrelated problems. I am woefully ignorant of their research, and they know little about my findings. Gradually, we have sacrificed breadth of knowledge for depth of understanding within our fields of study.     This choice seems reasonable when I consider the specialization of science itself. Scanning the table of contents in a recent issue of Science, I find that few articles are even remotely related to the somewhat narrow range of topics directly relevant to my thesis. In fact, many of the articles cover topics in other branches of science that are well beyond my grasp. Even in journals that appeal to a broad range of scientists, the literature is becoming so specialized that certain articles are inaccessible to researchers who are not experts in the field. The Noncritical Mass Faced with the sheer mass and increasing specialization of scientific knowledge, I find myself sifting through journals and seminar notices like junk mail. But determining whether something is relevant to my research is not trivial, and I undoubtedly miss many important discoveries along the way. Ideas fueling new lines of research often come from unexpected places, and it is difficult to predict where particular experiments will lead. Findings that seem peripheral to my interests today might become crucial for my research a few months from now.     Because of the three-year-old paper I found during my PubMed search, I conducted a new set of experiments. To my surprise, the results supported an alternate model that I had never considered before. The course of my thesis project has changed dramatically, and I am now presented with completely different possibilities for future experiments—all because one reference among hundreds happened to catch my eye. —Robin Lucas, an HMS graduate student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences microbiology program. Back to Top