The Bioinformatics Resource Centers (BRCs) are a group of five Internet-based

research centers A research institute, research centre, research center or research organization, is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often im ...

established in 2004 and funded by NIAID (the

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, ) is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). NIAID's ...

.)Overview, Bioinformatics Resource Centers
, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), January 10, 2008. The BRCs were formed in response to the threats posed by emerging and re-emerging

pathogen In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ ...

s, particularly

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...

(CDC) Category A, B, and C pathogens,CDC Bioterrorism Agents and Diseases (By Category)
, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Department of Health and Human Services), accessed July 8, 2008. and their potential use in

bioterrorism Bioterrorism is terrorism involving the intentional release or dissemination of biological agents. These agents are bacteria, viruses, insects, fungi, and/or toxins, and may be in a naturally occurring or a human-modified form, in much the same ...

. The intention of NIAID in funding these bioinformatics centers is to assist researchers involved in the experimental characterization of such pathogens and the formation of drugs,

vaccines A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious or malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verified.< ...

, or diagnostic tools to combat them. The main goals of the BRCs are as follows: 1) To create comprehensive

databases In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

of reliable, up-to-date bioinformatic data ( genetic,

proteomic Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replication of DNA. In ...

, biochemical, or

microbiological Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, pro ...

) related to the pathogens of interest;
2) To provide researchers with easy access to this data through Internet-based search and data retrieval

user interfaces In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fr ...

;
3) To provide researchers with relevant, state-of-the art computational tools for bioinformatic analysis of these data. The five BRCs are supported by various institutions, both publicly and privately owned, throughout the

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Each BRC focuses on a different group of pathogens.

References

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See also

References

External links