Gladstone scientists create Wikipathways

The laboratory of Bruce Conklin in the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease has created a new collaboration tool, WikiPathways, to focus on the use of biological pathways.

Building on the MediaWiki core that powers Wikipedia, WikiPathways has connections to major gene, protein and small molecule databases. This familiar web-based format facilitates broad participation by the scientific community in peer review, editorial curation and maintenance of the pathway content.

'The wiki model as exemplified by Wikipedia, was an obvious place to start,' said Alexander Pico, a postdoctoral fellow in the Conklin lab. 'This strategy fits well with the current trend to information exchange through community-defined data formats, collaborative online environments, and the growing number of open-access journals.'