WishBuilder

Thousands of biology-related datasets are publicly available on the Web. Commonly, researchers want to filter individual datasets to include biological samples that meet specific criteria and examine data for a few variables (e.g., genes, proteins) at a time. Unfortunately, researchers often have a difficult time performing these tasks because datasets are large in size and stored in a wide variety of formats.

To address this problem, we are developing Geney, a Web-based tool that enables researchers to query such datasets in a consistent and easy manner. As a way to get data into Geney, we are developing WishBuilder, a companion system that parses and standardizes publicly available data. WishBuilder downloads data from public Web servers, reformats the data, and stores it in a consistent, queryable format. To facilitate this process, we are enlisting students and other interested researchers to write WishBuilder scripts. The more datasets we prepare, the more useful Geney will be!

Contribute

To learn more about WishBuilder and how to contribute, please visit this page.