Client-server to Access Biological DBases Over Internet

The advent of genome analysis through molecular biology has brought into prospect thecomplete sequence analysis of the human genome and other species. The data is being gathered at anever increasing rate and the ways in which they will be analyzed are evolving even as it is beingcollected. The methods for accessing and distributing this information has also developed rapidly, butan adequate solution to rapidly accessing this information is not yet available. We plan to investigatea client-server approach to allow flexible and rapid access by scientists to up to date molecular biologicalinformation over internet. We will create an experimental adaptation of DNASTAR's Geneman programcurrently operating on the Macintosh with a CD ROM. The experimental program will act as a client forthe internet server being developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information. We plan tointeract closely with the team developing the server so that overall system performance, speed ofaccess, currency of information and alterative data sources can be maximized. Distributed/integrateddatabase access on the client-server model seamlessly combining local and distant data sources couldallow a user to integrate proprietary and public data without compromising security. Additiondevelopments along this line could lead to integration of different kinds of data at different geographicalsites.