Interview with Duncan Campbell: After the Draft Sequence, What Next for the Human Genome Mapping Project Resource Centre?

RDC: With the huge amount of draft sequence now available, we have seen increased use of the bioinformatics tools already on offer from the HGMP-RC, such as NIX and PIX. NIX is a suite of programs for database screening by BLAST, repeat masking and exon prediction for the identification of genes from genomic sequences. PIX is a protein equivalent of NIX, with BLAST searches, programs for domain and sequence motif detection, prediction of secondary structure and other tools. We are currently working on tools for microarray bioinformatics. Microarrays are clearly a very important research tool since they allow monitoring of the expression levels of large numbers of genes in parallel. We are developing tools, which will hopefully become available shortly, to support the use of the microarray service which we have set up. In addition to providing improved tools for data acquisition we will offer a public database to facilitate mining of the microarray data. We are also continuing to develop EMBOSS, a suite of tools for DNA and protein sequence analysis, which will expand the functions offered by the Genetics Computer Group (GCG) package. We are currently redeveloping our website in order to make it bigger, better and more interactive for our users, and our hope is that we will have a new website which will go live in the next few months. The site will include access and ordering for the existing services and information and support for new services as they come on-line.