title: PBrowse: a web-based platform for real-time collaborative exploration of genomic data.
abstract: Genome browsers are widely used for individually exploring various types of genomic data. A handful of genome browsers offer limited tools for collaboration among multiple users. Here, we describe PBrowse, an integrated real-time collaborative genome browser that enables multiple users to simultaneously view and access genomic data, thereby harnessing the wisdom of the crowd. PBrowse is based on the Dalliance genome browser and has a re-designed user and data management system with novel collaborative functionalities, including real-time collaborative view, track comment and an integrated group chat feature. Through the Distributed Annotation Server protocol, PBrowse can easily access a wide range of publicly available genomic data, such as the ENCODE data sets. We argue that PBrowse represents a paradigm shift from using a genome browser as a static data visualization tool to a platform that enables real-time human-human interaction and knowledge exchange in a collaborative setting. PBrowse is available at http://pbrowse.victorchang.edu.au, and its source code is available via an open source BSD 3 license at http://github.com/VCCRI/PBrowse.
authors.affiliation: Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia.|School of Information Technologies, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Peter S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Szot
authors.affiliation: Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia.|St. Vincent's Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia.|St. Vincent's Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China.
authors.forename: Chirag
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Parsania
authors.affiliation: School of Information Technologies, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Uwe
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Röhm
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China.
authors.forename: Koon Ho
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.affiliation: Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia.|St. Vincent's Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia.
authors.forename: Joshua W K
authors.initials: JWK
authors.lastname: Ho
mesh_terms: D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D015894:Genome, Human; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D020407:Internet; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D064878:Web Browser