State-of-the-Art Information Retrieval Tools for Biological Resources

Abstract

With the advancements in sequencing technologies, there is an exponential growth in the availability of the biological databases. Biological databases consist of information and knowledge collected from scientific experiments, published literature and statistical analysis of text, numerical, image and video data. These databases are widely spread across the globe and are being maintained by many organizations. A number of tools have been developed to retrieve the information from these databases. Most of these tools are available on web but are scattered. So, finding a relevant information is a very difficult, and tedious task for the researchers. Moreover, many of these databases use disparate storage formats but are linked to each other. So, an important issue concerning present biological resources is their availability and integration at single platform. This chapter provides an insight into existing biological resources with an aim to provide consolidated information at one place for ease of use and access by researchers, academicians and students.