High-throughput technologies such as large scale sequencing, DNA expression arrays, and high throughput proteomics have explosively increased the amount of data and the need for data management and analysis. The Burnham Institute Cancer Center requires effective exchange of information and coordination of research due to its strong collaborative culture and a large number of multi-investigator projects. The Informatics and Data Management Facility provides resources needed to integrate informatics and data management for the Institute in general, for the Cancer Drug Discovery Initiative in particular, and specifically for the five facilities that depend heavily on informatics (Gene Analysis, Proteomics, Chemical Library Screening, High Throughput Cell Analysis Facilities, and the Informatics and Data Management Facility itself). The Informatics and Data Management Facility will provide the following services: 1) Data storage, archiving, and retrieval, 2) Data analysis, 3) Data annotation, publishing, and mining, 4) Biostatistics, 5) Molecular modeling, structure prediction, and custom databases, 6) Installation and maintenance of applications, and 7) Training. Emerging concepts of database confederation - database wrapping or meta-databases - have immediate applications in this environment. Dedicated databases, some publicly available on the Internet, are the answer to managing, accessing and integrating data, and publishing that data in a way that conforms to standards and is readily usable. We propose creating an Institute-wide data management layer that would coordinate various data-intensive projects at the Institute via a common interface, adding elements of database confederation with various publicly available resources. The central concept in this proposed structure would be a ?Molecule page?, i.e., a database record containing links to all of the available information (from gene to function) to Institute researchers. At least two such systems, Molecular Pages at the Alliance for Cell Signaling and central annotation database for the Joint Center for Structural Genomics, have been developed at the nearby San Diego Supercomputer Center, with direct integration and support from the Burnham faculty members.
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