title: Integrating findings of traditional medicine with modern pharmaceutical research: the potential role of linked open data.
abstract: One of the biggest obstacles to progress in modern pharmaceutical research is the difficulty of integrating all available research findings into effective therapies for humans. Studies of traditionally used pharmacologically active plants and other substances in traditional medicines may be valuable sources of previously unknown compounds with therapeutic actions. However, the integration of findings from traditional medicines can be fraught with difficulties and misunderstandings. This article proposes an approach to use linked open data and Semantic Web technologies to address the heterogeneous data integration problem. The approach is based on our initial experiences with implementing an integrated web of data for a selected use-case, i.e., the identification of plant species used in Chinese medicine that indicate potential antidepressant activities.
authors.affiliation: Digital Enterprise Research Institute, National University of Ireland Galway, IDA Business Park, Lower Dangan, Galway, Ireland. samwald@gmx.at.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Samwald
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dumontier
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Joanne S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Luciano
authors.forename: Michael Scott
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Marshall
authors.forename: Kei
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Cheung