LibGuides: Biomedical and Life Sciences: Databases

Top biomedical and life sciences databases

These are the most popular databases that BLS students use to search for journal articles for their literature review.

MEDLINE Complete This link opens in a new window
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This full-text database provides access to top-tier biomedical and health journals. Covering a wide range of subjects, it is an essential resource for doctors, nurses, health professionals and researchers engaged in clinical care, public health and health policy development.
It includes full-text access to over 2,300 journal titles.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
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New interface from May 2020. The National Library of Medicine's free search service, providing access to millions of citations in MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE and other related databases.
Scopus This link opens in a new window
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An abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature in the fields of science, mathematics, engineering, technology, health and medicine, social sciences and arts & humanities.
Web of Science (All Subjects) This link opens in a new window
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Indexes thousands of high quality, peer-reviewed journals, providing complete bibliographic data, full-length abstracts and links to cited references and citing articles.
EMBASE: Excerpta Medica This link opens in a new window
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Index of several thousand journals in the fields of health, medicine and biomedical engineering. There is selective coverage for nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, psychology, and alternative medicine.

See the full list of Biomedical and Life Sciences databases.

Biology databases

BioMed Central This link opens in a new window
Search a large collection of science, technology and medical journals published by BioMed Central
BIOSIS Citation Index (via Web of Science) This link opens in a new window
Date coverage: 1969-2008. An index to life sciences and biomedical research covering pre-clinical and experimental research, methods and instrumentation, animal studies, and more.
Encyclopedia of Life Sciences This link opens in a new window
Thousands of specially commissioned articles in the life sciences, written by leading writers in the field. New articles are published each month.
Springer Protocols (access up 2020) This link opens in a new window
Online database of reproducible laboratory protocols in the biomedical and life sciences, spanning nearly thirty years.
JAN 2024 - We currently have trial access to Springer Protocols published from 2021 to the present day. They are listed in the results as 'No Access'. However, click on the title and you should be able to download the PDF. Access ends 15 April 2024
Protocols provide individual sets of instructions to allow scientists to recreate experiments in their own laboratory. They are documents that provide predefined written procedural methods in the design and implementation of experiments that describe the safety, bias, procedural, equipment, statistical methods, reporting, and troubleshooting standards to be used to conduct the experiment.

See the full list of Biology databases

Biochemistry databases

Natural Products Updates This link opens in a new window
Natural Product Updates is a literature updating service keeping you current with recent developments in natural products chemistry. Covering a wide range of primary sources, Natural Product Updates includes the most important natural product articles published in the recent scientific literature, which are searchable by topic, natural source, biological activity and structure type.
SciFinder This link opens in a new window
First time users need to complete a registration process here.
Note: Use your Lancaster University email address to register.

Comprehensive information covering the biomedical sciences, chemistry, engineering, materials science and agricultural science. It consists of CA Plus (formerly Chemical Abstracts) from 1907 onwards.
Guides on how to search and use SciFinder are available on their website.
Springer Protocols (access up 2020) This link opens in a new window
Online database of reproducible laboratory protocols in the biomedical and life sciences, spanning nearly thirty years.
JAN 2024 - We currently have trial access to Springer Protocols published from 2021 to the present day. They are listed in the results as 'No Access'. However, click on the title and you should be able to download the PDF. Access ends 15 April 2024
Protocols provide individual sets of instructions to allow scientists to recreate experiments in their own laboratory. They are documents that provide predefined written procedural methods in the design and implementation of experiments that describe the safety, bias, procedural, equipment, statistical methods, reporting, and troubleshooting standards to be used to conduct the experiment.
Web of Science (All Subjects) This link opens in a new window
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Indexes thousands of high quality, peer-reviewed journals, providing complete bibliographic data, full-length abstracts and links to cited references and citing articles.