Life scientists gather at UD for two-day NIH workshop

NCBI scientist Rana Morris introduces scientists to the research databases.

9:14 a.m., Feb. 19, 2004--Undergraduates sat side-by-side with senior scientists from Delaware’s biotech companies Wednesday, Feb. 18, all learning to use the scientific databases maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).

The session was sponsored by the Delaware Biotechnology Institute (DBI), as part of DBI’s two-day, hands-on workshop geared to teach students, academics and biotech scientists how to access scientific databases such as GenBank and RefSeq and how to use database search tools such as Entrez and BLAST.

Researchers can avoid reinventing the biological wheel by accessing the national databases centralized within NCBI, the molecular biology information arm of the National Institutes of Health.

“Instead of spending a month doing experiments in the lab, they sometimes can find things on the computer in 10 minutes, and that will make their research much more efficient,’’ Medha Bagwat, an NCBI scientist who taught the computer sessions, said.

Karl V. Steiner, associate director of DBI, said the topic drew students, principal researchers at the state’s biotech employers and academics from UD, Wesley College, Delaware State University, and Delaware Technical and Community College.

“We currently have a large biomedical research infrastructure network. This workshop brings together this community and really positions Delaware better in biotechnology research,’’ Steiner said. “There are 10,000 to 15,000 people in Delaware employed in the biotechnical industry. The academic interest is to provide the next generation of researchers.”

Rana Morris, the NCBI scientist who gave the participants an overview of the NCBI databases, told students and scientists that they don’t have to know HTML or other computer lingo to access the user-friendly databases. Morris said the objective of the hands-on workshops is to show students and scientists the vast variety of information available and to help them find what they need for their research.

Jeanette Miller, research administrator for DBI, said the NCBI databases are all accessed in the same way—similar to the way that all Windows programs are formatted the same way.

“If you have isolated a gene, you can go into the database and see what gene it compares to, find out everything about it, learn its function, see in which other organisms you’d find this gene,’’ Miller said. “It’s a powerful tool. And, just like with any other piece of software, you can teach yourself, but it’s always good to have some training that makes it easier.’’

The two-day workshop, which continues Thursday, drew about 90 participants.

Photo by Kathy Atkinson

E-mail this article

To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here.