The data mining platform comprises a plurality of system modules, each formed from a plurality of components. Each module has an input data component, a data analysis engine for processing the input data, an output data component for outputting the results of the data analysis, and a web server to access and monitor the other modules within the unit and to provide communication to other units. Each module processes a different type of data, for example, a first module processes microarray (gene expression) data while a second module processes biomedical literature on the Internet for information supporting relationships between genes and diseases and gene functionality. In the preferred embodiment, the data analysis engine is a kernel-based learning machine, and in particular, one or more support vector machines (SVMs). The data analysis engine includes a pre-processing function for feature selection, for reducing the amount of data to be processed by selecting the optimum number of attributes, or "features", relevant to the information to be discovered.