Presented at the Biotechnology Secretariat session on Informatic Challenges in Pharmacogenomics at the 225th American Chemical Society National Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, March 23-27, 2003.
Philip Barnett, and Claudia Lascar, Science/Engineering Library, City College of New York (CUNY), Convent Avenue at 138th Street, New York, NY 10031, Fax: 212-650-7626, pbsci@ccny.cuny.edu, clascar@ccny.cuny.edu
One of the challenges in pharmacogenomics research is locating and retrieving all the relevant literature on any topic within pharmacogenomics and the intertwined discipline of pharmacogenetics. Analysis of subject coverage reveals the indexing and abstracting services most needed in these two disciplines. Unlike most fields of chemistry where Chemical Abstracts suffices for most searches, this source contains less than half of the research literature in pharmacogenomics and pharmacogenetics. Supplementing a Chemical Abstracts search with the always free PubMed still does not recover all the literature in this field. Several databases, Science Citation Index, Biosis, Pascal, Embase, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, and Derwent Biotechnology Abstracts all contain unique additional references not included in the other databases. Even an often overlooked database, Cancerlit has some unique material. All of these sources must be searched to recover the literature in pharmacogenomics and pharmacogenetics, a rather interdisciplinary research area. While searching using the root terms "pharmacogenomic or pharmacogenetic" retrieves most of the relevant literature in this field, often specific topics within pharmacogenomics must be searched using a search strategy tailored to the exact subject being sought. Citation analysis and subject coverage examination reveal this field's most relevant journals, the ones most needed by researchers in pharmacogenomics and pharmacogenetics.