Customer Reviews

Genomes, Browsers and Databases: Data-Mining Tools for Integrated Genomic Databases

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The UCSC Genome Browser is a powerful tool that provides an open portal to the world's genomic information. But because its so powerful, it is often difficult to use. Here is an authoritative book that will get you on the air, not only with the reference data, but also with the means to compare it with your own data.

This is a terrific book.

The sheer mass of genetic data being assembled by various biotech firms and research labs has led to the rise of genomics. This book describes various computational tools currently available, to help the researcher analyse the data.

One such tool addresses the need to visualise. The brain is best at analysing large amounts of data when presented in visual form. Ensembl and MapViewer are 2 of the so-called genome browsers that have been written. They let you troll thru the data and see it displayed in several ways. While these might be called browsers, they are a far step from the generic web browsers. Be warned that the APIs have very nontrivial learning curves.

Another part of the book looks at querying of databases. Another growing area, with sophisticated needs.