FLICKR, U.S. ARMY MATERIEL COMMANDA good reagent can be hard to find. It typically takes wading through journal articles and published protocols to determine how best to set up an experiment. But a new search engine, Bioz, is hoping to streamline that process. The Palo Alto startup this week (June 20) announced $3 million in seed funding to improve their venture, which is currently in beta.
The site works by using natural language processing and machine learning to mine papers for a treasure-trove of information. A user can enter in a method (“PCR”) or a tool (“DNA polymerase”) and Bioz identifies reagents, ranking them according to how many times they’ve been used in experiments, the impact factor of the journal in which the referenced papers were published, and how recently a product was used.
Each result links to the vendor’s webpage. Bioz receives a lead referral fee, making the service free for users.
In addition, the search engine suggests relevant assays and collaborators, and shows the article context that describes how certain reagents were used.
Founder Karin Lachmi of Stanford explained the value of this feature: “Ok, I know what experiment ...
