I-DOCS: distributed agent-assisted knowledge fusion for disease gene discovery

New methods of electronic collaboration are needed to manage and reconcile the vast scientific knowledge made available through the experience of diverse experts. Fundamental research in capturing, managing, analyzing, and explaining information and making it available for use is seen as a high priority for software research worldwide. Therefore, we have developed a method and software for intelligent-agent assisted knowledge fusion systems to address these needs. This system utilizes intelligent agents to facilitate the construction and fusion of knowledge from distributed human experts working on a common knowledge-sharing task. We describe our multi-agent system prototype, the Internet-Based Distributed Ophthalmology Consensus System (I-DOCS) and how we are employing it for finding disease genes. We also describe some results of using I-DOCS with clinicians attempting to develop a common clinical nomenclature and classification system for disease subtypes