The NCI began developing the NanCI app under the Science and Technology Research Infrastructure for Discovery, Experimentation, and Sustainability (STRIDES) Initiative, a NIH program that advances cloud computing in biomedical research and breakthroughs in cancer and chronic diseases. This gave NCI access to an agile development environment and expert engineers, speeding up implementation cycles while maintaining compliance with regulations.

Researchers can create folders to categorize their areas of focus — for example, triple-negative breast cancer — bookmark key papers, and generate specific questions for each piece of research. NanCI analyzes this information to surface the most relevant papers for their exact research focus, summarize papers, suggest questions they might want to ask, and enable a chat-with-the-paper function to provide instant answers to critical questions. Unlike traditional keyword-driven searches, NanCI drives higher quality recommendations to create an interactive, intuitive process that saves researchers both time and effort while delivering personalized insight.

Users can also choose to make their folders public, creating opportunities to connect with peers with similar interests. They can follow experts’ public folders to gain curated insights from top researchers in their fields, collaborate with the global research community, and discover new people to connect with and events to attend. By adding these social network elements, NanCI promotes mentorship, connection, and a sense of community in the scientific world.

NanCI is still in its early stages, with more than 100 academic institutions participating. However, early testers have embraced the app’s personalized AI recommendations and social connection features to manage high volumes of research literature and engage with peers.

As the NanCI app continues to evolve, NCI, Google Cloud, and Barnacle Labs are exploring additional features like collaborative workspaces where teams of researchers can build shared folders and engage in AI-augmented discussions, along with the integration of additional public research resources, and the expansion into web and Android compatibility.

The team also has long-term plans to expand NanCI into high schools and engage with the next generation of researchers and scientists. “Part of our goal with NanCI is to get young people excited about cancer research and introduce young minds to science in an accessible way,” Bogler says. “With NanCI, they can use the phone in their pocket to summarize any research paper that interests them in language they can understand.”

Combining Gemini models with NCI’s mission-driven approach, NanCI is reshaping how science is accessed, shared, and advanced. This collaboration is building a more connected and empowered research community, which will ultimately help accelerate the pace of innovation and breakthroughs.