Abstract

Advances in information technology have improved our ability to gather, collect and analyze information from individuals online. Social networks can be seen as a nonlinear superposition of a multitude of complex connections between people where the nodes represent individuals and the links between them capture a variety of different social interactions. The emergence of different types of social networks has fostered connections between individuals, thus facilitating data exchange in a variety of fields. Therefore, the question posed now is "can these same tools be applied to life sciences in order to improve scientific and medical research?" In this article, I will review how social networks and other web-based tools are changing the way we approach and track diseases in biomedical research.

Links

Publisher Full Text

Authors

Costa FF

Institution

DataGenno Interactive Research Ltda, Rua Gastão Machado no 6, Edifício CME, Salas 503/504, Campos dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro 28035-120, Brazil. fcosta@datagenno.com

Source

Drug discovery today 18:5-6 2013 Mar pg 272-81

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article

Language

eng

PubMed ID

23103282