Bioinformatics Support and Training at the Weizmann Institute of Science

Rubin, E., Ben-Dor, S., Chalifa-Caspi, V., Esterman, L., Fichman, S., Frydman, R., Ophir, R., Orr, I., Prilusky, J., Safran, M. and Kahana, C.
Bioinformatics and Biological Computing Unit, Biological Services, Weizmann Institute of Science

To support the ability of Weizmann scientists to use the rapidly growing wealth of biological data and tools, the Bioinformatics and Biological Computing Unit (BBCU) maintains a large professional team. It serves as a knowledge base, by offering consulting services for bioinformatics users and developers. BBCU organizes many bioinformatics training activities such as courses, workshops and seminars in the fields of sequence analysis, genomics, bioinformatics software and database development, and DNA array data processing and analysis. The BBCU also identifies, purchases, and downloads useful data and software, as well as provides information about the availability and usefulness of these tools. The software includes Celera’s CDS, Compugen’s Gencarta, Accelerys’ GCG, and more. Data sources include Genbank, EMBL, Swissprot, NCBI’s NR, Transfac and over 50 additional databases. Finally, the BBCU maintains the infrastructure required to facilitate bioinformatics usage, including computers, software, data and mirror sites on a variety of hardware/software platforms. Some of the BBCU services are supported through the Israeli National Node (INN), and are provided to the entire Israeli academic community.