Development of a web-based resource for the Macrophage Research Community

巨噬细胞是一种大的白细胞，在身体的每个组织中都有大量的巨噬细胞。它们的数量在炎症刺激下进一步增加。它们在正常生理和伤口修复的许多方面都是必不可少的，它们是抵御病原生物的第一道防线，协调对感染的免疫反应。由于这个原因，它们的生物学在生物医学、制药、生物技术和动物生产行业有着非常广泛的兴趣，并且有大量的科学家研究它们。在过去的10年里，关于巨噬细胞的信息大量增加，特别是关于控制不同基因以产生这些细胞的许多不同功能的方式。基因组规模的信息对于科学家个人来说很难获取和理解，从而使他们能够发展和测试假设。本提案旨在建立一个网站，作为国际巨噬细胞生物学社区的社区资源。这就是所谓的web2.0资源，社区积极参与生成资源，并通过它进行交流。它将配备方便的工具，能够可视化和分析巨噬细胞中功能基因的大量数据；参与研究小组提供的数据。

Macrophages are large white blood cells that are also found in substantial numbers in every tissue of the body. Their numbers are increased still further in response to inflammatory stimuli. They are essential in many aspects of normal physiology and wound repair, and they act as a first line of defence against pathogenic organisms, coordinate both the immune responses to infection. For this reason, their biology is of very broad interest in the biomedical, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and animal production industries and there is a large community of scientists who study them. The past 10 years has seen a massive increase in the amount of information about macrophages, especially concerning the ways that different genes are controlled in order to generate the many different functions of these cells. Genome-scale information is very difficult for individual scientist to access and comprehend in ways that enable them to develop and test hypotheses. This proposal aims to establish a web site that will serve as a community resource for the international macrophage biology community. It is what is called a web2.0 resource, in which the community participates actively in generating the resource, and in communicating through it. It will be populated with convenient tools that enable visualisation and analysis of large sets of data relating to genes that function in macrophages; data contributed by participating research groups.