Search Guide for Biomedical Literature

How Search Works

LitView search goes beyond simple keyword matching. It understands the different parts of your query — biomedical topics, authors, journals, institutions, diseases, treatments, clinical terms, and research methods — and finds papers that match the relationships between them.

This means you can search the way you think, combining different types of biomedical information in a single query.

Quick Start

Query What it finds
CRISPR Papers about CRISPR and gene editing
heart failure Papers about heart failure
cancer immunotherapy since 2020 Recent papers on cancer immunotherapy published from 2020 onward
papers by Jennifer Doudna on CRISPR CRISPR papers authored by Jennifer Doudna
"cystic fibrosis" gene therapy Papers that exactly match cystic fibrosis and relate to gene therapy

What You Can Search For

Biomedical Topics and Keywords

LitView opening screen

Search for biomedical research topics, diseases, treatments, biological mechanisms, or technical terms. The search handles both broad topics and specific terminology.

Examples:

  • drug discovery
  • cancer immunotherapy
  • organoid technology
  • gene therapy
  • stem cell differentiation
  • antimicrobial resistance
  • neuroinflammation
  • biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease

Medical and Clinical Terms

Recognised medical and clinical terms are matched against standard medical vocabularies, helping return more targeted results than general keyword search.

Examples:

  • heart failure
  • type 2 diabetes
  • rheumatoid arthritis
  • glioblastoma
  • chronic kidney disease
  • major depressive disorder
  • triple negative breast cancer

Authors

Search for researchers by name. You can mention them naturally or use quotes for an exact name match.

Examples:

  • papers by Jennifer Doudna
  • papers by Katalin Karikó on mRNA vaccines
  • "christopher haggarty-weir" malaria

Quotes are useful for uncommon, hyphenated, or multi-part names.

Journals

Find papers published in a specific biomedical or scientific journal.

Examples:

  • Nature Medicine
  • The Lancet
  • New England Journal of Medicine
  • Cell
  • BMJ
  • JAMA
  • PLOS Biology

Institutions

Search for work from a particular university, hospital, research institute, or organisation.

Examples:

  • University of Oxford
  • Mayo Clinic
  • Walter and Eliza Hall Institute
  • Broad Institute
  • University of Melbourne
  • NIH

Combining Search Terms

You can mix and match different types of biomedical information in one query. LitView will look for papers at the intersection of those concepts.

Query What it finds
machine learning for drug discovery Papers applying machine learning methods to biomedical drug discovery
organoid models for colorectal cancer Papers about organoid models used in colorectal cancer research
CRISPR gene therapy sickle cell disease Papers connecting CRISPR, gene therapy, and sickle cell disease
papers by Katalin Karikó on mRNA vaccines mRNA vaccine papers authored by Katalin Karikó
"christopher haggarty-weir" malaria Malaria research by a specific author
immunotherapy biomarkers melanoma Papers about biomarkers for immunotherapy response in melanoma

You do not need special syntax to combine terms. Describe what you are looking for and the search will interpret the relationships between the terms.

Excluding Terms

Use not to remove unwanted results.

Examples:

  • CRISPR not review articles — CRISPR research excluding review papers
  • cancer immunotherapy not melanoma — cancer immunotherapy papers excluding melanoma-focused results
  • diabetes biomarkers not type 1 diabetes — diabetes biomarker papers excluding type 1 diabetes
  • Alzheimer's disease not animal models — Alzheimer’s disease papers excluding animal model studies

Place not before the term or phrase you want to exclude.

Exact Matching with Quotes

By default, search terms are matched flexibly. LitView may find related variations, synonyms, and close matches. Wrapping a term in quotes switches to exact matching, which is useful when you need precision.

Query How it matches
CRISPR gene therapy Flexible match on both terms
"CRISPR" gene therapy Exact match on CRISPR, flexible match on gene therapy
"triple negative breast cancer" immunotherapy Exact match on the cancer type, flexible match on immunotherapy
"cystic fibrosis" gene therapy Exact match on cystic fibrosis, flexible match on gene therapy
"christopher haggarty-weir" malaria Exact match on the author name, flexible match on malaria

When to use quotes:

  • Uncommon or hyphenated author names
  • Specific disease names
  • Specific biomedical terms you do not want broadened
  • When flexible matching returns too many loosely related results

Filtering by Year

Add a time period to any search using natural language.

Syntax Example
Since a year cancer immunotherapy since 2020
Year range organoid models from 2018 to 2023
Relative CRISPR gene therapy last 5 years

These can be combined with any other search terms. Other supported phrases include past 3 years and recent 2 years.

In addition to your search query, you can use sidebar filters to narrow your results by:

  • Publication year — set a start and/or end year
  • Work type — article, preprint, review, book, book chapter, dataset, dissertation, editorial, letter, report, and more
  • Open access status — gold, green, hybrid, bronze, diamond, or closed
  • Minimum citation count — only show papers with at least a certain number of citations

Sidebar filters work alongside your search query. For example, you could search for cancer immunotherapy biomarkers and then filter to open-access articles from the last three years.

Tips for Better Results

  • Start broad, then narrow. Begin with a biomedical topic, then add disease areas, treatments, authors, year filters, or quotes.
  • Use quotes for precise disease names. For example, "triple negative breast cancer" or "cystic fibrosis".
  • Combine an author with a topic to find their specific work in an area, such as papers by Jennifer Doudna on CRISPR.
  • Use not to remove noise. For example, Alzheimer's disease not animal models.
  • Use clinical terms naturally. Medical terms are recognised automatically, so you can type conditions, treatments, and disease names directly.
  • Add a year filter when the field changes quickly. For fast-moving areas such as immunotherapy, mRNA vaccines, or CRISPR therapy, try terms like since 2020 or last 5 years.

Example Queries

Search results

Query What it finds
CRISPR Seminal and recent papers about CRISPR and gene editing
heart failure Papers tagged with the medical term heart failure
cancer immunotherapy since 2020 Recent cancer immunotherapy research from 2020 onward
organoid technology cancer Papers about organoid technology in cancer research
drug discovery Alzheimer's disease Papers connecting drug discovery and Alzheimer’s disease
biomarkers for Parkinson's disease Papers about biomarkers in Parkinson’s disease
CRISPR not review articles CRISPR research excluding review papers
"CRISPR" gene therapy Exact CRISPR match combined with gene therapy
"triple negative breast cancer" immunotherapy Papers on immunotherapy for triple negative breast cancer
"christopher haggarty-weir" malaria Malaria research by a specific author
papers by Jennifer Doudna on CRISPR CRISPR-related papers authored by Jennifer Doudna
organoid models from 2018 to 2023 Organoid model research within a specific year range
mRNA vaccines last 5 years Recent papers on mRNA vaccines