Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!news.cs.indiana.edu!bionet!kristoff From: kristoff@genbank.bio.net (David Kristofferson) Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.genome-program Subject: Re: General Reference Message-ID: Date: 10 Dec 90 18:07:49 GMT References: <1990Dec10.005756.2694@agate.berkeley.edu> <39971@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Organization: GenBank Online Service Lines: 36 Your question about what computer scientists can do is being debated, but so far not on-line (which is something of a pity because the subscribership to this newgroup is larger than that of any other BIOSCI group by now, I think, and must include computer scientists who are also interested in this issue). I recently returned from a meeting in DC of the NIH/DOE Joint Informatics Task Force (JITF). The meeting was designed in investigate issues concerning sequence and mapping databases so that JITF could make recommendations in this area. While several interesting talks were given, your posting concerning what computer scientists could do raises a point which I believe was not fully explored. We heard from the various groups involved with producing databases and heard something about future plans, but there was not an extensive discussion of the suitability of the various database designs vis-a-vis potantial genome-sized computing problems. Perhaps this is the topic of another JITF meeting (?), but it might be helpful if a discussion along these lines was raised. For example, currently everyone is familiar with the problem of having to have a variety of formats of the sequence databases on the same machine, each format designed/optimized for a different specific task. What efforts are being made to reduce this problem in future database designs? I'm sure that there must be other nagging computational questions/problems that people can not get efficiently resolved at present (ones which will become even worse as the amount of data increases). This newsgroup is a chance for you to provide your input on these issues and to make contacts with others who might help. I should also add that members of the JITF and NIH officials also monitor these postings, so good ideas will not go unnoticed. -- Sincerely, Dave Kristofferson GenBank Manager kristoff@genbank.bio.net