Dr. Pramanik will develop a data management system for the U.S. Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center located at Ohio State University, which is supported under DIR 9113224. The center will collect, maintain, and distribute Arabidopsis seeds and other biological resources such as RFLP markers and YAC libraries. An advisory committee consisting of active Arabidopsis researchers will advise the center on its policy and overall operation. The Center also provides information associated with the resources it maintains, including genetic data, biological history, and bibliography. The research community will have access to this information either electronically or via regularly published catalogues. The objective of this award is to develop necessary databases and software for the information service aspect of the Center. The data management system to be developed will be flexible enough to allow additions and modifications to suit the changing needs of the research community. Initially, a user survey will be carried out in collaboration with the International Plant Molecular Biology Society. Continued input from the users will be sought throughout the life of the project. Dr. Pramanik plans to coordinate his efforts with similar efforts by other genome informatics research groups in general and by the USDA plant genome informatics group in particular.
