Preview the New NCBI Search Homepage

In coordination with the new PubMed interface, the NCBI has also redesigned the Entrez search page.

It's got a fresher look.  You can search for data by using the Resources menu (red arrow) or learn how to perform specific searches using the How To... links (green arrow).  The databases, such as EntrezGene, EntrezNucleotide and EntrezProtein, haven't changed their look, but the new homepage makes it easier to find a number of databases or tools in a related category, such as Genes & Expression.

When you click on any category in the Resources menu, you will see a page of databases and applications that are available at NCBI for that specific category.  The left side menu will change color from green to blue if you change from Resources to How to.

The Resources and How To menus are at the top of every page in the NCBI suite of databases (including PubMed), so you can easily search for resources from any database.  The older version of the Search pull-down menu is still available in the upper right of the NCBI search page for anyone who prefers the old search format.

What is really great about this redesign is that PubMed records now link to structures, proteins, mRNA sequences and genes that are mentioned in the text of the paper.  I've been waiting for this functionality and it's great to see it implemented.  Links to genes, sequences and structures are not complete for every article in PubMed, but they are included on many.  Before, users could only link to PubChem Substance records from PubMed, so this added interconnectivity between databases makes finding sequence or gene records from PubMed articles that reference them very easy to do. 

From the PubMed abstract above, the user can link to the structure reported by the article (blue arrow) or to other Entrez records referenced by terms in the article, such as the taxonomy records or protein sequence records (green arrow). 

NCBI databases have always had interconnectivity between them, and to PubMed, but never from PubMed to the other Entrez databases.  Now that PubMed links to the rest of NCBI's records and molecular biology databases, finding information referenced in the literature has become easier than ever.

Here are some related links:

• Preview the new PubMed search interface
• Read the NLM Technical Bulletin annoucement about the new PubMed design

Pamela Shaw
Biosciences Librarian
E-mail me by using the "E-mail Pam" link on my liaison page.

The Biosciences & Bioinformatics Blog highlights new tools and news items of interest to the biosciences research community at Northwestern University.