Dear Wiki API team,

 

I work for Glaxo SmithKline, a pharmaceutical company, and currently preparing for a project we are planning to do with the use of Wikipedia.

We will use our computational tools to assess the accuracy of the drug-related information that can be found on Wikipedia. We will use the open database Open PHACTS as a “gold standard” and compare the information on Wikipedia to this.

On the drug pages of Wikipedia there is normally a data table on the right side with the drug/chemical/pharma related information. Our plan is, if this is possible to carry out, to assess the accuracy of this information and if necessary, correct/update it from our database. If the time constrainsts allow us, I would like to also automatically write some very basic articles on drugs which currently do not have an entry on Wikipedia.

 

My questions are the following: How do I obtain an API key? On the api home page I saw that I may need a special key if I would like to do so many queries. What are the limitations? Is it possible to carry out the process I have described or should I find a different approach? Previously I thought about using SPARQL to query DBpedia but I found that in the conversion process many of the strings which are important to us chemists (SMILES representations of chemical compounds) get changed because of the special characters.

 

Thank you very much for your response.

 

Best wishes,

 

Luca Bartek

Computational Scientist

Complementary Worker on Assignment at GSK

 

GSK

Medicines Research Centre, Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 2NY, UK

Email   luca.x.bartek@gsk.com

Tel       +44 1438 762 778

 

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