Patent ID: 8275737

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of providing data to a knowledge base of scientific information, the knowledge base including a plurality of pre-existing feature sets and pre-existing feature groups, the pre-existing feature sets each including a list of features and associated statistics indicating one or more of: differential expression of said features, abundance of said features, responses of said features to a treatment or stimulus, and effects of said features on biological systems, and the pre-existing feature groups each including a list of features related by structure or function, wherein the features are biological or chemical entities or units of biological or chemical information, the method comprising: (a) correlating by one or more processors of a computer system an input feature set against a plurality or all of the pre-existing feature sets in the knowledge base, the input feature set including a list of features and associated statistics indicating one or more of: differential expression of said features, abundance of said features, responses of said features to a treatment or stimulus, and effects of said features on biological systems; (b) correlating by one or more processors of the computer system the input feature set against one or more pre-existing feature groups in the knowledge base; (c) storing on one or more storage devices correlation information generated in (a) and (b) for use in responding to queries involving feature groups or feature sets; and prior to (a), mapping by one or more processors of the computer system each feature in the input feature set to one or more mapping identifiers in the knowledge base, wherein each mapping identifier represents a globally unique feature in the knowledge base.