National Cancer Institute
AI Product Build (NanCI)

// OBJECTIVE

NCI envisioned an AI-driven application that would give scientists personalised literature recommendations alongside social networking and collaboration features. The cancer research community faces two compounding problems: information overload from the volume of published literature—over 500 new cancer research articles every day—and insufficient tooling for researchers to find and connect with peers in their field.

// THE BREAKTHROUGH

We built NanCI—a personalised research assistant for scientists at every stage of their careers. NanCI uses Gemini’s long context windows and advanced document understanding to process, summarise, illustrate and tag millions of scientific papers, then applies ML to learn each researcher’s interests and surface relevant work automatically.

// APPROACH

NCI began developing NanCI under the STRIDES Initiative—a NIH programme that advances cloud computing in biomedical research. Barnacle Labs partnered with NCI and Google Cloud to build the platform on Google’s AI infrastructure, using Gemini to cut through scientific jargon and reveal core insights. A social layer sits on top of the literature engine, enabling researchers to build professional connections directly within the platform they already use for discovery.

// OUTCOME

NanCI is live and serving researchers at over 100 academic institutions worldwide. Individual researchers receive personalised literature feeds without manual search. The platform is available globally through the Apple App Store and expanding to web and Android.

// THE PLATFORM

NanCI doesn’t just find papers—it understands them. Researchers can create topic folders, bookmark key research, and chat with papers to get instant answers. NanCI learns your interests as you interact with it and proactively suggests further research. It transforms dense, technical content into clear, digestible insights by using AI to summarise, tag and visually illustrate complex concepts—facilitating peer connections and strengthening the research community.

// WHAT’S NEXT

NCI, Google Cloud, and Barnacle Labs are exploring 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.