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The project exists within Wikipedia, and is expected to speed up the process of deciphering genome sequences.

According to Andrew Su, whose report of the project appears this week in the scientific journal PLoS Biology, the researchers were emboldened to develop the Wiki by Wikipedia’s “Be Bold” ethos.

To speed up the development of the ‘Gene Wiki’, the researchers developed a computer program that downloads information from existing databases, formats it, and posts the information as a ‘stub’ article on Wikipedia.

The stub articles are expected to seed the posting of more detailed information by Wikipedia users. Ultimately, the researchers hope to create a network of articles that will describe the relationship and functions of all human genes.

“Since the content in the Gene Wiki is encyclopedic in nature, then it only made sense to work in the context of Wikipedia than trying to compete with it,” said Su, a Senior Research Investigator at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation.

“Moreover, there are a lot of advantages of working there,” he told iTnews, highlighting Wikipedia’s active group of users, existing pages about related concepts, and search engine visibility as examples.

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