I. Search
Inputting a Search Query
The search bar is the starting point for every research session in Bionoculars. It accepts natural language queries, from single terms to full questions, so you can search the way you think.
Getting Started
- Click the search bar at the top of the page and type your query.
- Press Enter or click the search button to run your search. Bionoculars will retrieve articles from over 80 million life science publications.
- No special syntax is required. The engine handles natural language and technical terms equally well.
Tips
- Be specific. "PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors in melanoma" will yield more focused results than "cancer treatment".
- Avoid ambiguous acronyms.
- You can refine your results further with keywords and filters after the initial search.
Updating the Search Bar Filter
Filters let you refine your search results without changing your query. They are accessible via the filter icon in the search bar and give you fine-grained control over what articles appear.
Tips
- Use publication types and fields to improve the search's precision.
- When using both inclusion and exclusion, exclusion wins. If an article has an included publication type but an excluded field it will be ignored
- Filters directly impact the articles AI actions use. If the filter reduces the results to only two articles the AI will only use those two articles.
Adding a Keyword to the Search Bar
Keywords give you an additional layer of control over your search. They act as supplementary terms that refine the ranking of your results by boosting articles that match what matters to you and demoting those that don't.
How Keywords Work
- Toggle the keyword input in the search bar to reveal the keywords field.
- Type one or more keywords, separated by semicolons (;). For example: "Immunotherapy; PD-1; checkpoint".
- Negative keywords: Prefix a term withNOTto down-rank articles matching it. For example: "NOT chemotherapy".
Tips
- There is no need to add keywords in your query. Our query handler extract keywords from it automatically
- Add keywords that extend the query for better precision.
- You can use the keywords only without a search query.
- The keyword detection feature gives you a list of suggestions when you are typing your keyword. This is a list of candidate normalized keywords. It can be helpful for handling ambiguous acronyms
Going Through Result Articles
Once your search returns results, you'll see a list of article cards. Each card is designed to give you a comprehensive overview at a glance while providing interactive tools for deeper exploration.
Tips
- Always select important articles and keywords. The selections are automatically saved and are loaded along with the search.
- You can change the order method of articles. By default it puts selected articles on top and orders the rest by relevancy. You can choose relevancy only or other sorting methods.
II. Exploration
Keyword groups
The Keyword groups panel is one of Bionoculars' most distinctive features. It extracts life science keywords from your search results (chemicals, diseases, genes, biological processes) and groups them semantically using semantic models and the UMLS Metathesaurus data.
Each group represents a cluster of closely related terms. For example, a group might combine "PD-1", "programmed death-1", and "PDCD1" into a single entry since they all refer to the same concept.
Tips
- You can search for specific keywords at the top of the panel to find their corresponding group. Making the ranking logic behind your results visible and editable.
- Keywords are useful to explore the article results. You can pin and exclude keywords to change article ranking.
- Keywords can also help you identify new concepts to include in your research and build new search queries.
- You can click a keyword group to see which keywords were included in it.
Knowledge Graph
The Knowledge Graph provides a visual map of how the keywords from your search results are interconnected. It helps you discover relationships between concepts.
III. AI
Learn more in the documentation:
AI ActionsAutopilot
Autopilot is Bionoculars' one-click AI mode. When enabled, the AI automatically selects the most relevant articles from the search results and generates a comprehensive summary, giving you an instant overview of the research landscape.
How Autopilot Works
- Toggle AI mode in the search bar before running your search.
- The AI analyzes the returned articles and selects those most relevant to your query.
- It generates a structured summary with numbered citations back to each source article.
- Review the summary, then explore the cited articles to select interesting ones.
When to Use Autopilot
Autopilot is ideal when you're starting a new topic and want a quick lay-of-the-land. It helps you identify key papers and themes without manually reviewing dozens of articles. You remain in control: every claim is traceable, and you can always refine with manual selection afterward.
Select Articles of Interest
Before running AI Actions, for actions like Summary generation, you can manually curate which articles the AI should focus on. This selection-first approach puts you in control of what the AI reads and summarizes.
Why Manual Selection Matters
Manual selection ensures the AI's output reflects your judgment, not just an algorithm's. By choosing articles yourself, you control the scope and quality of any AI-generated summary or answer.
Generate summaries
One example of AI Actions in Bionoculars is Generate summaries. It generates answers and summaries based exclusively on your search results or project articles. Every claim is cited with reference numbers, so you can always trace back to the source.
Load Saved AI
AI actions are also automatically saved alongside your searches and projects. You can load them at any time and open the associated search or project.
IV. Searches & Projects
Searches
Every search you run is saved automatically. This means your query, keywords, filters, selected articles, and keyword group are all preserved so you never lose your work.
You can name the search to find it easily next time. Note that when a search is loaded after 30 days the results are recomputed.
Projects
Projects are your workspace for organizing research across multiple searches. You can collect articles from different searches into a single project and explore them together. You can also add multiple searches to a project
Adding Articles to Projects
Selected articles from any search can be saved to a project:
- Select articles by checking their checkboxes in the results list.
- Click "Save Selection to Project" in the articles header.
- Choose an existing project or create a new one.
Think of searches as individual exploration sessions and projects as collections where you bring your findings together. The two work hand-in-hand to support both focused investigation and broader synthesis.
Project Pages
When you open a project you are taken to its dedicated page. This page combines project metadata with the same exploration workspace as search results, scoped to the project's articles.
Below the details panel you get the articles, along with the Keyword Groups, Knowledge Graph, and AI Actions panels. This allows you to explore and manipulate your project's articles in the same way as search results.