An overview of biotechnology information resources.

s in BioCommerce Producer: BioCommerce Data Ltd. Vendors: D, DS BIOETHICSLINE ® Producer: National Library of Medicine, and The Kennedy Institute of Bioethics Vendors: B, BC, D, DM, DS, S BioMeetings Producer: BioSciences Information Service Vendors: BCON BioPatents Producer: BioSciences Information Service Vendors: BCON BIOREP Producer: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Vendor: ECHO Service BIOSlS PREVIEWS ® (Biological Abstracts) Producer: BioSciences Information Service Vendors: B, BC, D, DM, DS, S Biotechnology Abstracts Producer: Derwent Publications Vendors: D, 0 CA Search ® (Chemical Abstracts) Producer: Chemical Abstracts Service Vendors: B, BC, D, DM, S CAB ABSTRACTS Producer: Commonwealth Agriculture Bureaux Vendors: B, BC, D, DM CLAIMSTM/US PATENTS Producer: IFL/Plenum Data Company Vendor: D, O, S Provides both business and research information. Includes US patents from 1986, and covers biotechnology newsletters, meeting abstracts and journals since 1985. Covers biotechnology business information, especially newsletters. Records often list multiple sources for each abstract. Includes directory and descriptions of over 900 biotechnology companies. Biomedical ethics as they pertain to genetic engineering and related disciplines. Approximately 30 000 records. Includes more than 130000 references to life science research reported at meetings or published in books or journals. Coverage is international and includes reports from scientific meetings, symposia, seminars and conferences. Contains about 9000 patents granted in the USA in specialized life science fields since November 1987. Contains descriptions of about 6000 biotechnology research projects in the European Economic Community (EEC) countries. Corresponds to Biorep. Newsletter and is updated with about 1000 records each year. Covers conference proceedings, reviews, books, US patents and the periodical literature. Six million records from 1969 to present. Includes sequence accession numbers. Covers periodical literature and patents. More than 75 000 records from June 1982 to present. (About 27% are patents.) Journal articles, reviews, conference and symposium proceedings, and patents from several wor ldwide sources. Over eight million records. Covers agriculture, including agricultural biotechnology. US patent coverage from 1950 to present. Over 1.7 million patents accessible. online directory, accessible via DIALCOM and TELECOM GOLD, allowing access to strain information held in collections worldwide 7,a. It includes descriptions and references to sources of bacteria, yeasts, actinomycetes, filamentous fungi and algae, as well as vectors, hybridomas and animal cell lines. Major sources of strain information that can be found in MSDN include the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC, Rockville, MD). Microbial Culture Information System (MiCIS, Braunschweig, FRG) and Microbial Information Network Europe (MINE, Surrey, UK). The Taxonomic Reference File (TRF) developed by BioSciences Information Service (BIOSIS, Philadelphia, PA) includes bacterial names and synonyms for most bacteria and a bibliographic file of more than 13 500 bacterial taxonomy references published since 1969. Nucleotide and peptide sequence databases, references to sequence source, and sequence analysis software are valuable tools. It has been projected that, by 2001, the amount of sequence data deposited on a weekly basis will more than equal the number of bases deposited in the entire history of the largest genetic sequence database, GenBank 9. Sequence analysis software packages allow researchers to compare unknown sequences from their work with those that are published. Many databases and corresponding software are available in a variety of formats (e.g. CD-ROM, floppy disks, online via a number of networks, hardcopy). The Listing of Molecu]ar Biology Databases (Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, TIBTECHNOVEMBER 1990 [Vol. 8] 321 Name and detai ls Commen t on content Current Biotechnology Abstracts Producer: Royal Society of Chemistry Vendors: D, DS