A MOD(ern) perspective on literature curation

Jodi Hirschman, Tanya Z. Berardini, Harold J. Drabkin, Doug Howe

Curation of biological data is a multi-faceted task whose goal is to create a structured, comprehensive, integrated, and accurate resource of current biological knowledge. These structured data facilitate the work of the scientific community by providing knowledge about genes or genomes and by generating validated connections between the data that yield new information and stimulate new research approaches. For the model organism databases (MODs), an important source of data is research publications. Every published paper containing experimental information about a particular model organism is a candidate for curation. All such papers are examined carefully by curators for relevant information. Here, four curators from different MODs describe the literature curation process and highlight approaches taken by the four MODs to address: (1) the decision process by which papers are selected, and (2) the identification and prioritization of the data contained in the paper. We will highlight some of the challenges that MOD biocurators face, and point to ways in which researchers and publishers can support the work of biocurators and the value of such support.