5 database you ought to know as a life scientists or bioinformatician
Imagine the different biological experiments, published literature, discoveries, etc
Also, imagine trying to search for them on the internet. You will come up with thousands of results of which you will have to read depending on what you are working on. Sometimes some of this information is dated several years back!
That’s where a biological database comes in. It is a software that stores and organises a very large amount of biological data or info from different sources so that you can be able to query, retrieve and update data or info easily. Sometimes even one database can even house other databases, all dedicated to different divisions or branches of biology or any other related fields.
Here are 5 popular biological database you should know as a bioinformatician
- NCBI: Stands for National Center for Biotechnology information. It is funded and approved by the US. It is a database that contains other databases like Pubmed (biomedical literature database) GenBank (Database for DNA sequences) etc.
- PDB: Stands for protein Data Bank. it is a database that houses 3D structural data of biological molecules like nucleic acids, proteins
- EMBL database: Stands for European Molecular Biology Laboratory. It is a database that houses DNA and RNA sequences data that are mined from scientific literature, patent applications etc.
- TCGA. which means The Cancer Genome Atlas. It is a database that came to be as a result of the joint efforts of National Cancer Institute (NCI) & the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). This database characterises the genetic mutations responsible for cancer, using genome sequencing and bioinformatics.
- UNIPROT: stands for universal protein or. It is a database of protein sequences and their biological functions mined from genome sequencing projects and research literature.
What other biological database do you know? Share with us
References
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UniProt
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Molecular_Biology_Laboratory
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cancer_Genome_Atlas
- https://www.genome.gov/Funded-Programs-Projects/Cancer-Genome-Atlas
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_for_Biotechnology_Information
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_Data_Bank
