Part of the problem with having an entire globe full of researchers is attempting to collate data generated by them all. Ideally, there would be a world-wide collaborative research tool that enables scientists everywhere to access the findings of their peers and put it to use in their own more efficient, more effective research program.

This is the role that the Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Resource (IEDB), led by Alex Sette, Ph.D., Bjoern Peters, Ph.D. and Steve Wilson, Ph.D., at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology has begun to fill. The IEDB is a database containing information gathered by a team of MD/PhD level curators, and cutting edge analytical tools made freely available to scientists around the world. The project's name refers to epitopes, which are essentially a form of identification for the body. An epitope is the smallest portion of an entity that the body can recognize and utilize to determine how it will respond to that entity. Specifically, the IEDB is gathering data related to epitopes on infectious diseases (items such as influenza, west nile virus, smallpox, dengue virus and many, many more) as well as immune disorders to help with the creation of vaccines.

The goal of the project is unprecedented. Curators are scheduled to review roughly 10,000 separate research papers accumulating tens of thousands of epitope entries by 2010 (they've already completed more than half of that total). The goal of the group is to review published research papers and determine what data can be pulled from these research papers, standardized through expert annotation, and placed into a searchable information warehouse. It's a new way of arranging research data in a massive compendium, and promises to become an invaluable resource for scientists worldwide. The IEDB's website (http://www.immuneepitope.org/), launched in 2005, already registers hundreds of individual visiting scientists each day.

Immune research has certainly entered into the digital age, with equipment capable of capturing staggering amounts of data related to research which, until now, was published in traditional journals. This growing mass of data necessitates tools like the IEDB to enable researchers to effectively focus their research as they integrate this new information. In a world of rapidly emerging diseases and potential bio-terrorism concerns, research efficiency and collaboration is paramount-and the IEDB is the answer.

On May 05, 2009 La Jolla Institute announced the launch of version 2.0 of the IEDB site. This update increases the usability of the IEDB for scientists everywhere and opens the doors to even more areas of research. And with more users of the site, the greater the feedback from the community, ever increasing the utility and demand for this impressive asset to global biomedical research.