Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!silver!gilbertd From: gilbertd@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Don Gilbert) Newsgroups: bionet.general Subject: BioNet shutdown Message-ID: <23066@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> Date: 7 Jul 89 22:18:54 GMT Sender: root@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu Reply-To: gilbertd@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Don Gilbert) Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington Lines: 77 BioNet goals (from "The BIONET(tm) Resource" manual, page 1): (1) To provide computational assistance in data analysis and problem solving to molecular biologists and researchers in related fields. (2) To serve as a focus for development and sharing of new software. (3) To promote rapid sharing of information and collaboration among the community of scientists. I read Dr. Kristofferson's notice about the failure of NIH to renew funding for BioNet. It is distressing news, because BioNet is the _only_ resource providing the above services (2) and (3), and the only one providing a complete molecular biology computational service (1) on national basis, that I am aware of. Many other people I have talked with are similarly at a loss to know where to turn for these needs. It may have been suggested by the NIH reviewers that computational assistance can be met by computers and software purchased by each local researcher or group of researchers. That may be a nice dream but is not achievable by many of those who need molecular biology computing services. The stumbling blocks are hardware and software costs, and lack of personnel trained in biocomputing software to assist researchers. Indiana U molecular biologists recently spent $55K for VAX computer, and are currently spending $40K/year on personnel to manage it (me), software and maintenance. I now have people calling from off- campus to get accounts on our VAX because BioNet is shutting down. I don't have time or resources to do the job that BioNet is doing! Is it cost-effective for NIH to fund such local setups at all universities? David Kristofferson stated: "Unfortunately the BIONET Resource was not recommended for further "funding primarily due to the opinion of the site committee that the "requirement for a strong research program had not been met." I don't know what the committee's criteria for strong research program were, but goals (2) and (3) of BioNet are as strong a stimulus to my research as they could provide. My "research" involves developing software for molecular biology, for use on Macintoshes, VAXes, and any UNIX box, including Crays. I have made two of these programs available at Bionet and plan (or planned) to make several more available in the next few years. I also have been encouraging other developers to drop their programs there. There is no other good national repository of molecular biology software. Some individuals, schools, or clubs collect software and make it available at meetings, but it is very hard to find and get hold of. While there are other molecular databanks, Bionet has the nice feature of allowing _user_ involvement, meaning I can contribute my software or database directly, in the form I believe is most useful to others. Without BioNet, I have no good way to contribute my software to the world. No, I don't need their computer to do research on. Any developer now a days has a good Mac or PC that is 1000x faster to develop on than a multi-user computer. Yes, I do need BioNet to archive and distribute my research. I need people to use it, to test it and find bugs. My other distribution options are limited: a long delayed paper report in some journal such as CABios which doesn't actually distribute the software, it just tells people to bother me with requests (then we go through a dance of what format the sender and receiver can both handle). We all need a national (or world) archive and news center for molecular biology data and software. Without such a resource as Bionet, which handles all three areas specified above as the BioNet goals, molecular biology computing will flounder and be set back several months (a month in computing is a year in other areas) or years. Developers won't have anywhere to contribute software. People who need to find this or that software won't know where to look. The community of researchers, developers, users, and others that BioNet is fostering, and it is a _growing_ resource, will disappear. Don Gilbert BioComputing Office GilbertD@IUBACS GilbertD@Gold.Bacs.Indiana.Edu Biology Dept., Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN 47405 USA