CuraGen Corporation, New Haven, Ct. 06511, USA
There are very limited resources available for the molecular biologist or protein chemist to build a comprehensive report following multiple analyses of a DNA or protein sequence. Many useful analysis tools and databases including BLAST, PFAM, PSORT, BLOCKS, ENTREZ, OMIM, ENTREZ, PROSITE, PDB, GenBank are publicly available and we have utilized the best of these to create a comprehensive analysis engine named GeneToolsTM. Using publicly available source code and proprietary API's we have built a project management and bioinformatics engine that allows users to build reports after performing multiple analyses on batches of DNA and protein sequences. GeneToolsTM communicates and coordinates the output from analysis tools written in proC, C++, awk, Java, pl/sql, and can access external analysis tools through the use of a web robot agent. We have developed several tools such as the Electronic Northern and Electronic Mapper that take a DNA sequence and predict tissue expression profiles and chromosomal location, respectively. Analyses performed in GeneToolsTM can be easily customized and default settings for an analysis stored for individual users. To perform an analysis sequences are imported into GeneToolsTM automatically through our genomics operating system (GeneScapeTM), manually by uploading data files, or by cutting and pasting text. Once the data is imported into GeneToolsTM, one or more analyses are selected, and a report is generated with a table of contents, summary, and complete data outputs. The data generated can be saved and viewed at a later date using a user-friendly project management system. GeneToolsTM will be publicly accessible to the scientific community from November 1, 1997 on the Internet (http://www.genetools.com) as a part of CuraGen's GeneScapeTM genomics operating system