What this is, and isn't
A reading room for the databases disease research quietly runs on — assembled and maintained by a single data scientist working on diagnostics.
What this is
DiseaseDb is a personal catalogue of the databases I keep coming back to while working on diagnostics. I'm a data scientist, not a clinician — so what's here is a navigational index, not medical advice, and not a substitute for primary documentation.
It isn't a comprehensive directory of every biomedical database; meta-registries already do that better than one person could. It's a curated picture: the resources that actually do the day-to-day work, with enough context to know which one to reach for and what its limits are.
Each entry is drafted from the resource's own documentation and published references. Suggestions and corrections by email are very welcome — see Contribute.
How entries are written
Each entry is drafted from the resource's own documentation, its canonical publication (where one exists), and the descriptions it uses in its release notes. I try to answer the questions you can't easily get from a homepage: what the resource is actually useful for, where its limits lie, what it pairs well with, and the citation to reach for in a methods section.
Where two resources overlap I say so. Where one supersedes another, I say that too. Where I'm summarising — and that's everywhere — the primary documentation is the source of truth, not the entry here.
This is the registry I wish someone had written for me when I started working on diagnostics.
What I try to do
- Curated, not exhaustive. If a resource isn't in active practical use, it's left out. Meta-registries exist for completeness; this isn't one.
- Grounded in primary docs. Entries summarise the resource's own published descriptions and canonical references — not marketing material, and not my own clinical opinion (I'm a data scientist, not a clinician).
- Cross-referenced. Every entry points to a handful of resources you'd most likely open alongside it. The Referenced by rail on each detail page shows the inverse.
- Honest about access. Each resource is labelled free, registration-gated, controlled-access or subscription so you know before you click.
- Not medical advice. Nothing here should be used to make a clinical decision. Use the underlying resource and qualified judgement.
License & reuse
The DiseaseDb editorial content — descriptions, taglines, use cases and cross-references — is released under CC BY-SA 4.0. You can reuse and adapt it with attribution, provided you relicense under the same terms.
Resource names, logos and trademarks belong to their respective maintainers. Linked external resources are governed by their own terms.
Colophon
Set in IBM Plex Serif, Plex Sans and Plex Mono. Built as a server-rendered React Router application. No tracking, no advertising, no third-party analytics — every page works with JavaScript disabled.
Issues, corrections or ideas: tdeniffel@gmail.com or via the Contribute page.