NLM Biomedical Information Resources for Investigators

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is a leader in biomedical and health data science research and the world’s largest biomedical library. NLM develops, supports, and sustains biomedical information services that make the full range of biomedical information — literature, research data, software tools, and health data standards — findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable. Millions of researchers, clinicians, students, educators, and the general public use NLM services every day to support scientific discovery, health care delivery, and public health decision making.

Below is a listing of some of the many NLM biomedical information resources that might be useful to investigators involved in HIV/AIDS research. Content in these resources covers a broad range of biomedical areas so that researchers can easily research topics that intersect with, but may not be exclusive to, HIV/AIDS. For example, investigators may explore information about a symptom that might be a side effect of a certain class of drugs, search for data on a constellation of symptoms, or look at interactions between therapeutics specific for HIV/AIDS and other drugs. Investigators can also contact their own institutional libraries for additional resources.

Biomedical Literature Resources

• PubMed is a database that contains more than 35 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. PubMed provides access to PubMed Central, a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature.
• MedlinePlus is an online health information resource designed to meet consumer’s health information needs. It provides reliable and easy-to-understand high-quality, relevant health and wellness information for patients and families in English and Spanish from NLM, NIH, other government agencies, and health-related organizations. Among this vast array of content, MedlinePlus also contains several HIV/AIDS topical pages.
• NLM Digital Collections is a free online repository of biomedical resources including books, manuscripts, still images, videos, and maps. Digital Collections provides access to NLM’s rich historical resources, as well as select modern resources.

Clinical Trials Resource

• ClinicalTrials.gov is the world’s largest publicly accessible database of privately and publicly funded clinical studies. ClinicalTrials.gov provides patients, families, health care providers, researchers, and others with access to information on clinical studies for a wide range of diseases and conditions.

Drug, Chemical, and Medical Device Resources

• DailyMed provides authoritative information about marketed drugs in the U.S., including the most current labeling information submitted by drug manufacturers to the FDA.
• PubChem is the world’s largest collection of freely accessible chemical information.
• AccessGUDID contains unique device identification and attributes information to identify devices sold in the U.S (from manufacturing through distribution to patient use). AccessGUDID is updated daily with new data received from FDA.

Gene and Protein Data Resources

• NCBI Datasets: HIV-1 is an aid to find resources on HIV-1 from NLM’s National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) molecular biology data repositories, including sequences from GenBank, an annotated collection of publicly available DNA sequences, Reference Sequence (RefSeq), a database of genomic, transcript, and protein reference sequences, and the Sequence Read Archive, the world’s largest publicly available repository of high throughput sequencing data.  
• NCBI Virus is a community portal for viral sequence data from RefSeq, GenBank, and other NLM repositories.
• Gene is a portal to a wide range of information about any specific gene, including access to RefSeq, variations, and expression data.
• ClinVar aggregates reports that associate human genomic variations with clinical findings.

Training Resources

• National Library of Medicine Learning Resources Database delivers free online tutorials and videos to learn about and use NLM products and services.
• NLM’s Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) provides a training calendar to find free and useful health information training Select from webinars, classes, and on-demand tutorials on a variety of topics.
• Featured NNLM Training Resources:
  • NNLM Guides and Resources -- Browse NNLM’s curated collections, which feature tools, programs, research data, training opportunities, and informational materials from NLM, NIH, and other trusted sources.