Software Tools for Interoperable Taxonomic Databases

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A team of collaborators from seven bioinformatics research organizations proposes to enhance existing software tools to create a World Wide Web (WWW) based expert taxonomic resource that will be immediately valuable for the international virology community and will serve as a prototype for taxonomic data resources in other biological disciplines. Expanding on previously funded NSF project, the team will complete development of the software infrastructure for providing real time access to the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses' database (ICTVdB). This taxonomic knowledge base will combine the advantages of local, warehoused datafiles with the ability to establish dynamic links to distributed forms of data and will provide for immediate updating of the files. Enhancement and modification of the DELTA suite of programs, used for taxonomic research and biodiversity studies, will permit data analysis and identification of organisms via the WWW. Linking of ICTV data with other biological datasets, e.g., genomic data, graphics, repository, and reference data via HTML and the web will enable taxonomic comparisons based on genetic and phenotypic data analysis. Use of the Web/Genera and Sybase software to enable SQL queries and online data entry/updates over the Internet to a relational database interoperating with DELTA will give taxonomists and other researchers multiple access points and data management capabilities, depending on their specific requirements. The proposed data resource will conform to prescribed standards in data modeling, syntax and semantics, thus facilitating membership in the emerging "federation" of biological database developers. It will also serve as a utility to enhance modeling of complex biological systems.