As of today, users who visit http://symatlas.gnf.org will be redirected to BioGPS.

Many of you are probably reading this blog for the first time because of this new feature, and believe me, it’s not a change we take lightly. SymAtlas has a very loyal user base, and one that we value highly.

We’ve foreshadowed this change previously, and we’ve posted annoying red banners on SymAtlas encouraging people to give BioGPS a try. But we think it’s finally that time when 90% of SymAtlas users will have a better user experience over at BioGPS, and this is another gentle (but firm) nudge in that direction.

Why should you transition over to BioGPS? First, we’ve largely kept the same user interface, so the learning curve should be minimal. Second, and more importantly, BioGPS is a more powerful and useful research tool. There are more reference gene expression data sets, more annotation data sources to choose from, more up-to-date information, and a more customizable user interface. Check out the screencasts or past blog posts (linked at the right) for more information.

This step also points to the eventual and inevitable retirement of SymAtlas. We’re making this transition slowly to give all of our users sufficient time to get accustomed to BioGPS. Even with the SymAtlas redirection announced here, users will have a backdoor to access SymAtlas. But even that will eventually go away.

If there are still reasons that you’re continuing to use SymAtlas instead of BioGPS (aside from inertia), then please let us know now! Correlation search is the only distinguishing feature on SymAtlas, and due to user feedback we’ll be adding it to BioGPS shortly. Other than that, we strongly believe BioGPS will be a more productive tool for you in your research.

Welcome to the BioGPS community!