Poster Sessions

BIOINFO-14

Esther Asaki

E. Asaki, Y. He, K. Meyer, W. Xiao, L. Young, J. Powell

mAdb - MicroArray Database System: Bioinformatics for Analyzing and Managing MicroArray Data

The mAdb (microArray database) system has continued to add informatics tools and data management to support the ongoing efforts of NCI/NIAID/NIMH/FDA microarray user communities at the National Institutes of Health for over ten years. The mAdb system has grown and evolved to meet their needs as the microarray platforms and technologies have matured. Support for Illumina BeadChip and Agilent FE analyzed arrays have been added and include various pre-processing/normalization methods, such as quantile normalization, and quality assessment displays, e.g. box plots and loess normalization curves. We make R/BioConductor tools, such as LIMMA, PCA, PAM, RMA and SAM more accessible to the scientists through a common web interface. We also assist users in creating MIAME compliant GEO submissions, as required for publication by many journals. The mAdb system is designed to fulfill two major roles. First, mAdb provides a secure data management system for gathering, storing, and managing experimental information and array data. Researchers administer access to their data, allowing sharing with collaborators. Second, mAdb integrates a variety of Web accessible tools to support the multiple analytical approaches needed to decipher array data in a more meaningful way. This includes integrating supporting information from various data sources (i.e. Gene Ontology, Biocarta and KEGG Pathways, RefSeq, Entrez Gene, UniGene, and GeneCards) to enable drilling down into the rapidly expanding biological knowledgebase.