The National Center for Genome Resources is awarded a grant to develop a Virtual Plant Information Network (VPIN). VPIN will be based on such middleware platforms such as BioMOBY and will significantly empower plant biology research by providing powerful bioinformatics capabilities for integrative and comparative biology. It will combine the data and analysis tools from TAIR (www.arabidopsis.org), DargonDB (antirrhinum.net), LIS (www.comparative-legumes.org), Gramene (www.gramene.org), TIGR's Genome Annotation (www.tigr.org/tdb/e2k1/mta1) and Medicago Gene Indices (www.tigr.org/tigr-scripts/tgi/T_index.cgi?species=medicago) and the CGIAR's Generartion Challenge Prgram via IRIS (www.iris.irri.org/) and IWIS (www.cimmyt.org/research/wheat/iwisfol/IWISFOL.htm).
Specifically this project will (1) merge Semantic MOBY and MOBY Services into a single unified Semantic Web Services platform for biology; (2) develop protocols that enable registration of plant information resources with the Semantic Web Services platform and establish an operational Virtual Plant Information Network; and (3) develop interfaces that will allow biologists to discover data and invoke services across web-based plant resources using semantically based concepts. VPIN will extend web technology developed previously under NSF funding and enable better access to available information resources by biologists with a single point of entry. Students at various stages of their education will be involved in the design and development of this system. The VPIN will serve a broad range of biologists from plant breeders to computational biologists.
