Bringing Biocuration to China

Biocuration involves adding value to biomedical data by the processes of standardization, quality control and information transferring (also known as data annotation). It enhances data interoperability and consistency, and is critical in translating biomedical data into scientific discovery. Although China is becoming a leading scientific data producer, biocuration is still very new to the Chinese biomedical data community. In fact, there currently lacks an equivalent acknowledged word in Chinese for the word “curation”. Here we propose its Chinese translation as “审编” (Pinyin: shěn biān), based on its implied meanings taken by biomedical data community. The 8th International Biocuration Conference to be held in China (http://biocuration2015.tilsi.org) next year bears the potential to raise the general awareness in China of the significant role of biocuration in scientific discovery. However, challenges are ahead in its implementation.