Disclaimer

Please read this before using RareWays.

Not medical advice

RareWays is a research directory and information service. It is designed to help people find and understand scientific literature and clinical trials related to rare diseases. It is not a medical service and does not provide medical advice.

Information published on RareWays, including AI-generated summaries, is for general informational and educational purposes only. It should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website.

If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor, go to the nearest hospital emergency department, or call emergency services immediately.

AI features policy

RareWays uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate plain-English summaries of research articles (the “Explain Simply” feature). These summaries are produced by a large language model (Anthropic Claude Haiku).

AI-generated summaries are intended to help non-specialists understand the general subject matter of a research article. They are:

  • Based on the article title and abstract only (not full text)
  • Simplified and may omit important nuance or caveats
  • Not reviewed by medical professionals
  • Not a replacement for reading the original research
  • Explicitly prohibited from providing medical advice

We instruct our AI model to avoid making clinical recommendations. However, AI systems can make mistakes. If you notice an inaccurate summary, please treat it accordingly and refer to the original source.

Data sources

Research articles and clinical trials on RareWays are sourced from the following publicly available databases:

  • PubMed (NCBI) — National Library of Medicine biomedical literature database
  • Europe PMC — European Bioinformatics Institute open access literature
  • bioRxiv — Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory biology preprint server
  • medRxiv — Health sciences preprint server
  • OpenAlex — Open catalog of scholarly papers and authors
  • ClinicalTrials.gov — US National Institutes of Health clinical trial registry

Data is collected from 2020 onwards and updated periodically. Preprint articles have not been peer reviewed and should be interpreted with caution.

Accuracy: While we take care to provide accurate and up-to-date information, RareWays makes no warranties about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, or suitability of any information on this website. Use it as a starting point for your own research and conversations with your healthcare team.