BioGPS is our new gene annotation portal. As mentioned previously, the unique feature of BioGPS will be its unwavering commitment to the Long Tail.

If you’re passionate about the concept of the Long Tail as I’ve grown to become, you can certainly spend long hours reading up on the subject. But on a practical level, our focus on the Long Tail means two things for users of our BioGPS gene portal.

  • First, BioGPS will be completely customizable for each and every user. Other gene portals have a particular view of gene annotation, and they present data to you as if everyone shares that same view. In contrast, BioGPS understands that different people come here for different sorts of gene annotation, whether it be an emphasis on protein structure, or in vivo function, or cellular pathways. BioGPS will adapt to your needs, not vice versa.
  • Second, BioGPS will be easily extensible by the community. With other gene portals, it’s pretty much a one-way street as far as information transfer. If you know something about a gene or have a new data set that you want to share with the world, in most cases, it’s pretty tough to add that data to other gene portals. BioGPS will make that process as easy as can be through a simple plugin interface.

There you go, these are the founding principles of BioGPS. We know that our BioGPS user base will be largely seeded from our SymAtlas community, so if you’re one of our loyal users we hope BioGPS offers all that and more.

Feedback is always welcome. Comment here, email me directly (asu .at- gnf .dot- org), or email the developer team (biogps .at- gnf .dot- org).