• CSIC members can now search and access full-text scientific articles using novoseek biomedical search engine.

Madrid, Spain, March 8, 2010 – Novoseek, the free biomedical search engine developed by the bioinformatics company Bioalma, has been incorporated to electronic information resources available at the CSIC (Spanish Council of Scientific Research). This integration will permit members of the CSIC to access novoseek directly from the CSIC Virtual Library. All the novoseek users belonging to the CSIC, will find a direct link of to complete documents available at the CSIC Virtual Library. Novoseek will therefore become part of the CSIC Network of Libraries resources available to its scientific community.

“Integration of novoseek biomedical search engine in our digital Library Network will enhance the search experience for biomedical contents. This initiative promotes both novoseek and the CSIC Virtual Library and we are confident that it will have a warm welcome in our biomedical community” said Agnès Ponsati, Director of the Libraries Coordination Unit.

“With this agreement, CSIC researchers will benefit from novoseek’s semantic and information extraction technology while also enjoying direct access to the full text of articles published in any of the journals offered by the CSIC Library Network. The CSIC is the most important research institution in Spain and this collaboration between Bioalma and CSIC Library Network is indeed proving to be very fruitful” said Luis Cornide, Bioalma’s General Manager.

Novoseek offers a powerful alternative to traditional information retrieval systems such as PubMed, and is aimed at a variety of audiences within the biomedical community, including students, medical doctors, medical librarians and biomedical scientists and researchers. Since its introduction in February 2009, Bioalma has added significant functionality to novoseek, including the ability to search grant award information from entities such as the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP), as well as the ability to conduct full-text searches in all Open Access journals housed in PubMed Central.

CSIC supporting resources:

• Spanish National Research Council: http://www.csic.es
• CSIC Library Network: http://bibliotecas.csic.es/
• CSIC Virtual Library: http://metalib.csic.es/
• CSIC Libraries Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/BibliotecasCSIC

Novoseek supporting Resources:

For more information on novoseek, please visit: http://www.novoseek.com.

To download the corporate backgrounder, please visit: www.novoseek.com/info/ns_backgrounder.html

novoseek blog: http://blog.novoseek.com/

novoseek Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/novoseek/

novoseek Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/pages/novoseek/101834395337

novoseek LinkedIn group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1699237&trk=hb_side_g

About novoseek

Novoseek is a dynamic information extraction system for searching the published knowledge in biomedical literature.

Novoseek indexes the biomedical literature with text mining technology built by Bioalma that identifies key biomedical terms taking into account external available data and contextual term information. As a result of this indexing technology, novoseek retrieves every document where a term is mentioned no matter the synonym used and discards those documents where the term is used with an unwanted meaning.

About Bioalma

Located in Madrid, Spain, Bioalma is an IT company specialized in the research and development of biomedical software.

Bioalma was founded in 2000 as a spin-off of a bioinformatics group in the National Center of Biotechnology and a privately-held company, as part of the Bionostra group. Bioalma prides itself on an elite team of well-known, internationally-leading scientists as part of its scientific committee and has successfully marketed its technology to different research institutions, universities, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, including National Institutes of Health, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Roche and Althea Technologies.

Bioalma is a privately-owned company, part of the Bionostra group. The Bionostra Group is composed of four companies that share the common objective of being leaders in the biotechnology and bioinformatics sectors. Its main activity is scientific research focused on the development of new technologies, products and biotechnology services within the field of human health. Bionostra Group is composed of Bioalma, ChimeraPharma, Bionostra and Microbionta.

About CSIC

The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) is a National Agency as declares the Real Decreto 1730/2007, de 21 de Diciembre BOE, and it is the Spanish most important Public Organism for Research, with presence in all the Spanish regions through 126 centers and 145 associated units.

The objective of the CSIC is the promotion, coordination, development and diffusion of the scientific and technologic research with a multidisciplinary character. The final intention of these activities is to contribute to the advance of the knowledge and the economic, social and cultural development. Additionally, it is also dedicated to the training of scientific staff, and advising public and private entities about these activities.

The CSIC Library network is form by 78 specialized libraries distributed in 21 cities from 10 regions,

The mission of the Library Network is to provide a horizontal scientific information system that ensures the selection, organization, diffusion, access and preservation of the information resources. These services will create intellectual and scientific connection mechanisms between these resources with the intention of be a useful instrument in the research process, and educate in the effective use and evaluation of the scientific information. To achieve this mission, the Library Network will use in a local o remote way, infrastructures and high-quality services that guarantees that the science generated at the CSIC is a well-informed science.

Software Engineer – Database support and development

Bioalma is a Spanish company which mission is to provide the life science community with innovative information technologies that enable the search, management and relation of the knowledge available in different sources, facilitating its analysis and comprehension.

We are looking for dynamic and curious people with interests in research and development that want to get involved in an exciting project that will require overcome technical challenges and work inside a multidisciplinary team, formed by engineers, chemists, biologists.

We are hiring experts in programming database oriented applications and projects to form part of our R&D team in Madrid, Spain.

Requirements:

-1+ years of experience

-Expertise in Java programming

-Experience in development on MySQL and Oracle

-Advanced user level in Linux/UNIX systems

Pluses

-Experience in database administration and replication.

-Experience dealing with large volumes of data

-Knowledge on UIMA

email to: rr_hh[at]bioalma[dot]com

Bioalma announced today the release of a novoseek’s API that will allow a customized interaction with the company’s biomedical search engine. Novoseek’s free-of-charge API will enable the user to integrate novoseek-derived information in different data workflows so as to extract key biomedical concept annotations on scientific texts. Based on this API, Bioalma has also developed a gadget platform that will easily help Web developers enrich the content on their pages.

“This API will let the bioinformatitians and web developers integrate novoseek’s information how and where they want it”, says Ramon Alonso-Allende, director of marketing and business development at Bioalma. “In addition, with our new gadget platform anyone can take advantage of novoseek’s technology and easily add contents in their web sites. They can have a list of their own publications or the publications on their favorite author integrated in their blog, it being automatically updated”.

The API is free and at this moment it has restrictions on usage of up to 300 petitions per day. The only request for its use is an API key that should be used both for programming or using of the gadget builder platform.

Novoseek offers a powerful alternative to traditional information retrieval systems such as PubMed, and is aimed at a variety of audiences within the biomedical community, including students, medical doctors, medical librarians and biomedical scientists and researchers. Since its introduction in February 2009, Bioalma has added significant functionality to novoseek, including the ability to search grant award information from entities such as the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP), as well as the ability to conduct full-text searches in all Open Access journals housed in PubMed Central.

To view a demo of how to use novoseek API, please visit:http://www.novoseek.com/info/tutorial_video_gadgets.html

Request an API key at http://api.novoseek.com

Customized Home Page Allows for Saved Searches, Email Alerts and Search History

Madrid, Spain – Bioalma today announced mynovo|seek, the industry’s first customized portal for users that enables a more personalized user interface. In response to user feedback, mynovo|seek allows for saved searches and search results, chronicled search history, the ability to create email alerts on new published research and the ability to export citations from Medline – in full text or from grants – all in one place. For the everyday user, this is an important piece of functionality, providing the ability to quickly find the research or grant information they’re looking for without having to start a search from scratch.

“When we launched novo|seek last February, mynovo|seek was one of our priorities in terms of delivering new features and functionality allowing for ease of use for our user base,” said Ramon Alonso-Allende, director of marketing and business development, Bioalma. “We’re already receiving very positive feedback to mynovo|seek and we encourage users to sign up and try it out, either on our home page or through one of our many channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.”

Novo|seek offers a powerful alternative to traditional information retrieval systems such as PubMed, and is aimed at a variety of audiences within the biomedical community, including students, medical doctors, medical librarians and biomedical scientists and researchers. Since its introduction in February 2009, Bioalma has added significant functionality to novo|seek, including the ability to search grant award information from such as the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP), as well as the ability to conduct full-text searches in all Open Access journals housed in PubMed Central.

To view a demo of how mynovo|seek works, please visit: http://www.vimeo.com/5992886. To sign up for mynovo|seek, please visit: http://www.novoseek.com/RegisterForm.action. To share your experience using novo|seek or mynovo|seek, please fill out this survey.

Primary U.S. Federal Agency for Conducting and Supporting Medical Research. to Use Text Mining Technology for Human Salivary Proteome Project

Madrid, Spain – Bioalma today announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has licensed AlmaKnowledgeServer 2 (AKS2) software, the company’s informatics system which contains powerful tools to search, analyze, and visualize all types of information extracted from biomedical literature. AKS2 is a subscription-based system, and is the technology that is the basis for Bioalma’s free biomedical search tool – novo|seek.

The Center for Information Technology (CIT) at the NIH has expanded its licenses of AKS2 by more than 25 percent to ensure that researchers involved in the human salivary proteome project can utilize the solution as the annotation platform for the project – a project with a long-term goal of supporting the discovery of saliva-based diagnostic tests. Saliva-based tests hope to provide new “non-invasive” diagnostic methods that can be performed for little cost in a doctor’s office or at a patient’s home.

“Being selected yet again by the NIH – the go-to resource for biomedical research in the US – is a proof point to the powerful capabilities behind our text mining technology – within both AKS2 and novo|seek,” said Ramon Alonso-Allende, director of marketing and business development, Bioalma. “Our overarching goal is to put the power of information into the hands of researchers, medical students, doctors, and librarians, and we continue to add functionality and expanded resources to our family of biomedical search tools to solve that ever-increasing problem of mining overwhelming amounts of scientific literature.”

Bioalma will be exhibiting novo|seek – a powerful alternative to traditional information retrieval systems aimed at a variety of audiences within the biomedical community – at the Bio International Convention this week at booth #1405/M06

Bioalma Adds More than 140,000 New Full-Text Research Articles to novo|seek

Boston, Mass., and Madrid, Spain, April 27, 2009 – Bioalma today announced at the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo, that novo|seek is now capable of executing full-text searches in all Open Access journals housed in PubMed Central.

Leveraging Bioalma’s text mining capabilities, users can now extend beyond just the abstract to identify – for the first time – key information housed in the full-text article. By identifying key biomedical terms in the entire text, searches yield the most relevant research results available today.  Additionally, by adding Open Access journals to the novo|seek universe of search targets extends the number of searchable articles by an average of 1,000 new articles per day, or about 140,000 total new articles.

“Our goal with novo|seek is to provide users with the easiest ways to access to the latest research and grant information available for the biomedical community,” said Ramon Alonso-Allende, director of marketing and business development, Bioalma. “By providing access to more than 140,000 new pieces of research, we’re arming users with novo|seek’s powerful text mining capabilities to search all Open Access full-text articles and abstracts. We are looking forward to adding as much open access and free access content as we can to broaden the scope of literature users can mine.”

Open access rights to biomedical research is important as it goes beyond just free access to content, making distribution, copying and derivative work production possible. Free access only allows the individual to view the content, but not use it or share it, and, it’s not made available in public repositories.  To learn more about the differences between open access and free access and what this means for the biomedical community, please visit the novo|seek blog.

Bioalma will be exhibiting novo|seek – a powerful alternative to traditional information retrieval systems aimed at a variety of audiences within the biomedical community – at Bio-IT World Conference & Expo this week at booth #111.

For independent researchers who would like their published papers in novo|seek, please contact openaccess@novoseek.com.

Showcasing New Capabilities Including Ability to Search Grant Information; New Whitepaper on Text Mining-Based Search Approaches Available

News Facts:

• Bioalma today announced that it will be exhibiting at the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo being held April 27-29 at the World Trade Center in Boston.
• At booth #111, Bioalma will be exhibiting novo|seek, its new biomedical research tool that offers a powerful alternative to traditional information retrieval systems such as PubMed. Novo|seek has been embraced by the life sciences community since its introduction in February, experiencing a weekly average increase in web traffic of 60 percent.
• Bioalma has continued to add significant functionality to novo|seek, including the ability to search grant information across more than 75 institutions including the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), serving as an invaluable resource for locating research funding.
• The company will have its new whitepaper available, “Leveraging Text-Mining Based Search to Navigate Biomedical Literature” which details the pros and cons of various ways in which to search biomedical information, such as text mining, natural language processing, information extraction and knowledge discovery, and how novo|seek leverages text mining to offer an easy to use, and efficient search system for biomedical literature and grant information.

First Biomedical Search Engine to Provide Integrated Grant Information Across More Than 75 Institutions; Provides Valuable Resource to Locating Research Funding

Extending its ability to provide the easiest access to the latest research information available for the biomedical community, Bioalma today announced the ability to search grant award information within novo|seek. Novo|seek is the first biomedical search engine to provide integrated grant award information from more than 75 institutions including the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP).  This capability gives users an easier-to-use alternative to the NIH CRISP database when writing grants or searching for the most relevant literature and grant information during the research process.

For biomedical scientists and researchers, the ability to not only search the “who” (who is doing the research) and “what” (area of focus) of the biomedical research but the “how” of the research – the funding source – in a single website is an extremely valuable combination. The NIH awarded almost $30 billion in grants in 2008, and with the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), is expected to receive an additional $8.2 billion in extramural funding to help stimulate the U.S. economy through the support and advancement of scientific research. This means that now the need for insight into federally funded research is more important than ever.

“The ability to search for grant information during the biomedical literature search process is invaluable. Comparing the grant and literature published on certain topics can give great insight into areas like epigenetics or embryonic stem cell research,” said Ramon Alonso-Allende, director of marketing and business development, Bioalma. “The combination of novo|seek’s powerful text mining technology and newly integrated grant information offers a one-stop shop for researchers and scientists looking for scientific literature and the associated grants, making the overall research process as seamless as possible. This is just one of many valuable enhancements we plan to add to novo|seek this year.”

Novo|seek offers a powerful alternative to traditional information retrieval systems such as PubMed and is aimed at a variety of audiences within the biomedical community, including students, medical doctors, medical librarians, and biomedical scientists and researchers. By leveraging SciSight, delivered by G&S Discovery, within the novo|seek search engine, users have the ability to search and view overviews of life science research grants from both U.S. and Canadian sources.

“Our goal with SciSight is to help scientists gain a better understanding by enabling them to search and find awarded grants within their area of research,” said Mark Walker, vice president, G&S Discovery. “Providing this grant award information in partnership with novo|seek is a great way for us to make this resource available to more scientists.”

New Biomedical Research Tool Embraced Widely Since Introduction

Since its introduction last month – novo|seek the new biomedical research tool from Bioalma – has met with favorable reaction and acceptance within the life sciences community.

Novo|seek offers a powerful alternative to traditional information retrieval systems such as PubMed.  Aimed at a variety of audiences within the biomedical community, including students, medical doctors, medical librarians, and biomedical scientists and researchers, novo|seek is a dynamic information extraction system for searching published knowledge in biomedical literature.

Attendees and visitors of the Bioalma exhibit at the recent Molecular Tri-Conference, in which they were a corporate sponsor, echoed the positive reaction that novo|seek has received to-date.

Feedback from key communities of interest include the following:

• From a medical student: “I found the search engine easy to use. It took a few moments to tinker with the filters on the left, but I felt it could help narrow a search quickly once it got me to work. After that point (probably like most physicians) I stopped exploring because it found what I wanted. Its interface is easier to use than PubMed. I would consider using it regularly.”
• From a medical researcher: “I’m not a very technical person. I search for literature in PubMed to prepare clinic sessions but it takes me a lot of time to go through all the results that I get back. Normally I have to ask several questions to get what I’m looking for. With novo|seek, it’s really easy. I can check on related concepts and use those to filter the search. That is really convenient for a person who is not really technical.”
• From a scientist: “The ability to filter results speeds up the search process dramatically compared to PubMed as well as the ability to find protocols through filtering. I would recommend this tool highly to my colleagues.”
• From a bioinformatician: “novo|seek is an interesting text mining system that I believe will be useful for researchers not only in their daily search for papers but also to find efficiently literature-based links between biological objects.”
• From a PhD student: “I like the ability to classify the results according to the 11 categories, it makes the research more intuitive. It is definitely more attractive than Google Scholar, an interface that doesn’t suit me at all.”
• From a medical librarian at Stanford University: “Novo|seek is an innovative biomedical literature search engine that performs ‘entity identification’ on PubMed records, thus vastly improving filtering and understanding of search results. It also searches NIH’s database of extant grants, CRISP, and does so in a much more elegant manner than CRISP itself.”

Since launching novo|seek on February 2, Bioalma has seen a dramatic uptick in web site visits from its various communications avenues, such as their blog, Twitter feed, and direct web site visits. Since February 2, the novo|seek web site has seen a weekly average increase in web traffic of 60 percent, and in the last week alone, saw a 98 percent increase in traffic, during the Tri-Conference.

New elements of the website experience include:

• Sample search results based on the examples of “cerebral palsy in grants,” “Spasmodic Dysphonia IL1-Beta,” and “breast cancer since 2008.”
• Video tutorials on searches, such as searching for grant information
• Frequently Asked Questions about novo|seek.
• The Knowledge Beyond Words blog with insight into industry trends and debates (such as the debate regarding free access to biomedical knowledge, judgmental heuristics, and professional usage of Google).

Supporting Resources:

• For more information on novo|seek, please visit: http://www.novoseek.com.
• To download the corporate backgrounder, please visit: www.novoseek.com/info/ns_backgrounder.html
• novo|seek Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/novoseek/
• novo|seek Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/pages/novoseek/101834395337
• novo|seek LinkedIn group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1699237&trk=hb_side_g

The Molecular Medicine Tri Conference in San Francisco is one of the most important events within the biotechnology industry. Over the course of four days – between February 24 – February 27, all of the major players within this market are gathered together to discuss their products and how they are being used. In addition, there are several talks given by professionals across several areas including: Molecular Diagnostics, Stem Cells Congress, Adopting Integrated R&D Informatics Systems. In addition, the heavily-anticipated Best Product Awards event will draw huge buzz.

Obviously, as professionals in text mining technologies in the biomedical sector, we took the opportunity to attend and talk about our latest product: novo|seek. Consequently, you will be able to meet us (Luis Cornide and Ramón Allende, respectively General Director and Marketing & Business Development Director) at booth 208. It will be our pleasure to meet with you and introduce you to the powerful functionalities behind novo|seek. Ramón will also be speaking on Wednesday, February 25th at 10:15 AM on “New Biomedical Information Search Engine Based in Text Mining Technology”.