We have recently read and commented on this article published by the European Association for Cancer Research which looks at the "Impact of caBig on the European cancer community" - that is the takeup and response in Europe to tools for biomedical research developed by the caBIG offshoot of the US National Cancer Institute.
The basic findings of the report are that the tools are not widely (to put it mildly) used or indeed heard of in Europe but where they are they are very highly rated - the kind of tools we are talking about here are designed to produce "an integrated informatics grid to incorporate open source, open access tools to collect, analyse and share data, enabling everyone to use the same methods and language for these tasks".
The most used and best rated (in Europe) tool developed by caBIG is GenePattern, "a freely available software package developed at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard for the analysis of genomic data. Designed to enable researchers to develop, capture, and reproduce genomic analysis methodologies."
All of the caBIG tools and technologies are open source - let us know what you think of this article - which is up for review in eCancerMedicalScience soon.
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