MOBY:A World-Wide Distributed Bioinformatics Analysis System

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spg Hbr NY

Investigators

Abstract

A long-term problem in bioinformatics is the need to access, analyze, and publish information. Since both central and distributed solutions have been tried, the problem is now how to integrate the information across different platforms. This proposal will provide a general architecture for achieving the integration, using a combined client/server, peer-to-peer implementation of the web service broker model. This centralizes information about where data and services are located while allowing distributed data acquisition and service invocation. A core of model organism database developers already supports the architecture. The project will deliver a graphical implementation and annotation source as well as an application programming interface and proof of principle for four model organisms. This integration of data can change the way research and education occur using the Internet and the distributed expertise of the community.