What are Databases?
- 1. Course Code : BT 200 Lecture : 2 Instructor: Muzzamil Ahmed
- 2. • A database is a platform where data or information arranged in structures is stored electronically on the computer. Also, these data or files or information are updated over a period of time. • The database is one of the important systems to properly retrieve, store, and search any type of data.
- 3. These are the databases consisting of biological data like protein sequencing, molecular structure, DNA sequences, etc in an organized form. Several computer tools are there to manipulate the biological data like an update, delete, insert, etc. Scientists, researchers from all over the world enter their experiment data and results in a biological database so that it is available to a wider audience. Biological databases are free to use and contain a huge collection of a variety of biological data.
- 4. It helps the researchers to study the available data It helps scientists to understand the concepts of biological phenomena. The database acts as a storage of information. It helps remove the redundancy of data
- 5. There are basically 2 types of biological database Primary databases Secondary databases
- 6. It can also be called an archival database since it archives the experimental results submitted by the scientists It obtains unique data obtained from the laboratory and these data are made accessible to normal users without any change. Accession number identifies each data uniquely and it never changes. Examples of Primary database- Nucleic Acid Databases are GenBank and DDBJ Protein Databases are PDB,SwissProt
- 7. The data stored in these types of databases are the analyzed result of the primary database Computational algorithms are applied to the primary database and meaningful and informative data is stored inside the secondary database.. A secondary database is better and contains more valuable knowledge compared to the primary database. Examples InterPro (protein families) UniProt Knowledgebase (sequence and functional information on proteins)
- 8. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) provides a wealth of information in the fields of medicine and biological sciences The NCBI houses a series of databases relevant to biotechnology and biomedicine and is an important resource for bioinformatics tools and services. Parent organization: United States National Li... Affiliations: National Institutes of Health Founded: 1988; 34 years ago
- 9. GenBank (Genetic Sequence Databank) is one of the fastest growing repositories of known genetic sequences GenBank files contain information like accession numbers and gene names, phylogenetic classification and references to published literature