Human Genome Project and Bioinformatics Online

Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary research area that brings together biological and computational sciences. It deals with the computational management—the storing, retrieving, analyzing and predicting—of biological information. Because the field of molecular biology produces such vast amounts of data, most current bioinformatics projects deal specifically with genetic material and proteins.

Indeed, much of the research in bioinformatics is related to the Human Genome Project http://www.nhgri.nih.gov/HGP/. The Human Genome Project is an attempt to identify all of the approximately 30,000 human genes and provide tools for understanding their functions. By fully understanding genes, researchers will be able to test for the presence of particular forms of genes, develop new techniques for preventing disease, develop new medicines and treatments, and even correct faulty genes. Those curious about the Human Genome Project should access the Oak Ridge National Laboratory http://www.ornl.gov/hgmis/, which provides a useful primer on genomics, as well as introductions to such specialized areas as functional and comparative genomics. The UB Libraries also own numerous books on the Human Genome Project, including Kevin Davies's "Cracking the Genome" (Free Press, 2001) and Matt Ridley's "Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters" (HarperCollins, 1999), written for the curious layperson.

The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ is the national resource for research tools in molecular biology. The NCBI site provides resources and links to literature databases, molecular databases, genomic biology resources and tools for data mining. The NCBI maintains the GenBank DNA sequence database http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/index.html, the primary database of genomic data—GenBank currently contains information on more than 55,000 different organisms. Data is submitted directly to GenBank by researchers from all over the world for use by the entire scientific community. Most current bioinformatics work involves gigantic databases, including public repositories of gene data like GenBank or PDB (Protein DataBank), and private databases maintained by research groups or biotechnology companies. After data has been obtained and entered into databases, bioinformatics researchers use sophisticated computational tools to analyze that data. The NCBI maintains a collection of the tools used by bioinformatics researchers http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Tools/index.html, many of which are free for use by academic researchers.

Interested in what's going on in bioinformatics at UB? Monitor the Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics' Web page http://www.bioinformatics.buffalo.edu/, which provides information about current research at the university and its partners. The mission of the Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics is to act as a research, development, education and economic outreach resource for industries based on bioinformatics, including those engaged in information technology, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. For more information on bioinformatics and genomics research, go to the UB Libraries' guide http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/sel/bio/bioinfo/humangenome.html. This guide offers an introduction to the field, as well as annotated links to human genome information resources, genome research projects, Web sites, online publications, databases and local resources.

—Austin Booth and Brenda Battleson, University Libraries.