In the 21st century, it is becoming increasingly important for students to be aware of and understand basic biotechnological and microbiological concepts. As always, these scientific concepts are most effectively conveyed through hands-on laboratory experiences. However, laboratory exercises are challenging because of the potential risk of student exposure to harmful microbes and chemicals, challenges in maintaining sterility of cultures, cost of scientific materials, and length of time required for preparation and laboratory experiments. Because of the urgent need to improve and expand the biotechnology and microbiology component of curricula using novel, safe, and effective approaches, we have developed this web site. As the centerpiece of this project, we have utilized the halophilic microbe, Halobacterium species NRC-1, which has been extensively studied in our laboratory for the last 20 years, as an ideal teaching vehicle. ... [Information of the supplier]
Aspergillus flavus is a plant, animal, and human pathogen that produces the carcinogen, aflatoxin. An organized multidisciplinary team is coordinating research efforts to control this fungus and to prevent the formation of its toxin in food and feeds. [Information of the supplier]
Funded as part of the Wellcome Trust Functional Genomics Development Initiative, the GeneDB project is aiming to develop and maintain curated database resources for three organisms: Schizosaccharomyces pombe, which has been completely sequenced, and the kinetoplastid protozoa Leishmania major and Trypanosoma brucei, whose genome sequences have yet to be completed. The goals are to capture, store and manage data for integration with emerging functional genomics and proteomics projects and to provide an easy-to-use, user-friendly interface, including a variety of graphical displays. It is envisaged that the generic database structure will subsequently be adopted to integrate datasets for other organisms, both prokaryotic and eukaryotic, that have been sequenced by the Sanger Institute Pathogen Sequencing Unit. To this extend, datasets for Saccharomyces cerevisiae as well as the filamentous fungus Aspergillus fumigatus are already available through GeneDB. The database has been developed through close collaboration between Sanger Institute software developers, on-site organism specific curators and representatives of the research communities. The data within geneDB are manually annotated and curated, frequently updated and, because of the structured annotation and use of controlled vocabulary, easy to precisely query. The database is under constant review and new functionality will be added as it evolves. ... [Information of the supplier]
The Earth Microbiome Project is a proposed massively multidisciplinary effort to analyze microbial communities across the globe. The general premise is to examine microbial communities from their own perspective. Hence we propose to characterize the Earth by environmental parameter space into different biomes and then explore these using samples currently available from researchers across the globe. We will analyze 200,000 samples from these communities using metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and amplicon sequencing to produce a global Gene Atlas describing protein space, environmental metabolic models for each biome, approximately 500,000 reconstructed microbial genomes, a global metabolic model, and a data-analysis portal for visualization of all information. ... [Information of the supplier]
