What is Synapse?

Synapse is a self-service web interface and database supported and maintained by the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Library, providing access to an inventory of the published output of our researchers and clinicians. As the name implies, Synapse is the user’s point of “connection” to publications authored by Memorial Sloan-Kettering staff. You can search for specific author names or by journal title, keyword and other fields. The search will return a listing (bibliography) of the publications that you can browse, print, export or connect to the fulltext of specific articles.

The term “synapse” was coined in 1897 by the English physiologist Charles Sherrington with help from some of his colleagues. They derived the coined term from the Greek work “synaptein” meaning to fasten together. The interface for Synapse allows users to submit, search, and retrieve relevant information about MSKCC published literature that can be used for research, creating bibliographies, completing core grant applications and updates, journal club sessions, and future publications and presentations.

How Synapse is populated

Several bibliographic databases are used to systematically populate the references being stored in Synapse; additional metadata and individual references are manually added.