kristoff@NET.BIO.NET (Dave Kristofferson) (09/14/89)
We are pleased to announce the expansion of the GenBank on-line computing service for molecular biologists! This expanded service will include many of the most important computing capabilities needed by molecular biologists in a national computer resource thanks to the strong expression of support made by the scientific user community. We will be sending out a hardcopy mailing including pricing, other details of the service, and an application form to everyone on the BIONET mailing list in the very near future. We will begin accepting applications as soon as possible and plan to have the first accounts operational by the end of October. The new GenBank On-line Service will run on powerful new computer hardware, a four processor Solbourne 4/600 system, which will operate at over 80 MIPS (million instructions per second). By contrast the current BIONET DEC 2065 computer is about a 1.5 MIPS machine. The new Solbourne system is compatible with Sun Microsystems hardware currently in use at GenBank, BIONET, and IntelliGenetics. The On-line Service will provide two classes of accounts, both of which will be open to academic AND commercial users unlike the previous BIONET Resource which was restricted only to non-profit use. The first class of accounts (class I) will provide basic database retrieval and searching services as well as access to electronic communications (e-mail and the BIOSCI newsgroups currently available on BIONET). *DAILY UPDATES* of the latest submissions to both GenBank and EMBL will be available to class I accounts as will be the ability to search the databanks with the FASTA program. Sequence retrieval from the databases will be very rapid, based on the IRX indexing software developed at the National Library of Medicine. IRX essentially indexes every word in the database annotations thereby allowing quick sequence retrieval, including Boolean searches. The FASTA program will also be accessible from remote sites by e-mail along with the ability to retrieve hits by locus name via e-mail. In addition to the nucleic acid sequence databases, the On-line Service will also provide access to the SWISS-PROT database and, around the end of the year, a translated GenBank database of gene product sequences will be provided. An anonymous FTP facility will be available for the latest database updates and other items, although the GenBank On-line Service will not actively document and maintain contributed public domain software. The current BIONET software collection has been provided to the University of Houston and the EMBL. The second class of accounts (class II) on the Service will have access to all class I privileges as well as access to the IntelliGenetics Suite of molecular biology software, the main programs currently in use on BIONET. This service is covered entirely by user fees. Details on costs and other aspects of the GenBank On-line Service will be sent out by hardcopy mail or can be obtained by calling me at 415-962-7339 or the GenBank office at 415-962-7364. Sincerely, David Kristofferson, Ph.D. GenBank On-line Service Manager