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| Neil McKenna |
Rainer Lanz |
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David Steffen |
Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology,
Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX |
Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology,
Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX |
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Director, Bioinformatics Research Center,
Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX |
| Ph.D: 1995, National University of Ireland, Galway |
Ph.D: 1994, University of Zurich |
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Ph.D: 1976, Brandeis University |
| nmckenna@bcm.edu |
rlanz@bcm.edu |
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steffen@bcm.edu |
Specific Aims
1. Continue development of an informatics platform for the submission, analysis, integration and dissemination of data resources.
We plan to mine all major NURSA datasets for integration to form networks of NR signaling. In practical terms, we will collate data from our large interaction (coregulator complex), functional (siRNA, shRNA) and gene expression studies (quantitative PCR, ChIP-chip and microarray), and subject the data to ontological analyses to build biological networks for NR and their coregulators. The mining results of the Bioinformatics Resource will be fed back to the laboratories to increase their confidence in data validation, used to enhance our informatics data management, and made available to the end-user via user friendly web applications. Critically, these analyses and resulting applications will be based upon datasets that are (i) unique and novel to the nuclear receptor field; (ii) based on state-of-the-art, data-rich methodologies such as Chip-chip and mass spectrometry; (iii) rigorously validated by the submitting laboratories; and (iv) assembled on consistent, internally-validated, technological platforms. As an organic component of the consortium, the Bioinformatics Resource is in a unique position to analyze these datasets in an integrated fashion. Accordingly, the applications we deploy will afford users of the NURSA website fresh perspectives on the functional interplay of nuclear receptors, coregulators and the afferent signaling conduits which integrate with these pathways, allowing them to verify existing models, or to test new ones.
2. Maintain, curate and further develop the NURSA Molecule Pages
The NURSA Molecule Pages project has produced a generic molecular class-specific database capable of dealing with highly heterogeneous data from across a variety of electronic and literature sources. The Molecule Pages have fulfilled one of the primary objectives of the Resource, namely collating information on the NURSA molecule classes (nuclear receptors, ligands and primary transcriptional coregulators) and providing an integrated framework of supporting information for the primary data submitted by the NURSA investigators and collaborators. We now propose to add new software modules with the purpose of expanding on the main objectives. We propose to continue to collate meaningful and accurate information for the target molecule classes, and as well as to develop new software modules with the purpose of expanding on the objectives previously articulated.
Specific Aim 3. Consolidate a systematic strategy for community-based curation and outreach.
The Bioinformatics Resource is developing a four-tiered strategy to making results of the research and other features of the project available to as wide an audience as possible and, reciprocally, to ensure two way information flow into and from the Consortium.
1) The nuclear receptor community signaling – www.nursa.org
2) Wider basic and clinical endocrinology community – annotation of articles in Molecular Endocrinology
3) Wider biomedical research field – PubMed/PubMed Central
4) Existing data repositories (GEO) to ensure widespread availability of the most critical NURSA datasets.
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