ABSTRACT
In the context of data handling bioinformatics is concerned with the design of appropriate standards and databases for proper archiving. A well-known example of this is the MIAME (Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment) initiative, an international project aiming to define the necessary information to enable a microarray experiment to be repeated or the data re-analysed. There are other similar initiatives in progress for other data types. A key extension of these ideas is the concept of data integration, so that diverse data types can be queried together, for instance linking transcriptomic data to genome sequences and annotations, or data related to the proteome and metabolome. This contributes to another key aspect: the need to provide convenient access to data and associated analysis tools for users with less well-developed computational skills, who wish to interrogate the data in order to ask biological questions. Although substantial progress has been made, these problems, and data integration in particular, remain far from solved. They are nevertheless very important for effective progress in systems biology.
