DNA microarray technology is one of the most important recent breakthroughs in experimental molecular biology. With evermore laboratories acquiring this highthroughput technology, the amounts of data being generated are growing extremely rapidly, and the informatics necessary for handling and analysing these data is becoming a major bottleneck. The EBI is working on the development of applications to promote and further the development of the informatics and analysis of microarray data and that is integrated with other biological resources in order to better understand the results of gene expression experiments. We are exploring the development of new techniques as well as technology transfer from marketing and telecommunications domains, e.g. application of visualisation, data mining and statistical analysis. Currently, the EBI is assessing the suitability of different data mining algorithms to microarray gene expression data, e.g. neural networks, classification trees, market basket analysis, clustering, classification, etc. As well developing Internet tools that will allow users to browse and query microarray data stored in a database, the EBI is investigating techniques and technologies that will allow direct access to the microarray information in a database over computer networks, for example CORBA and JDBC. This technology will allow developers at other sites to develop and write their own novel software tools that can perform queries and analyses on microarray data that is pulled over the Internet from the EBI microarray database.It is now becoming generally recognized that microarray technology will be a fundamental tool used in future genomics research. As the technology becomes more widely accessible, larger numbers of biologists will be able to shift their focus from the study of individual events to the analysis of complex systems and pathways. To help drive this transition, we have used novel tools for creating and reading highdensity microarrays of spotted DNAs to investigate whether conventional chemistries (for example, Southern, northern and western blots) might be applied to microarray analysis. It had previously been assumed that these well-documented methodologies could not be used for microarray analysis because: (i) spotting instruments could not produce arrays on membranes such as nitrocellulose or nylon; and (ii) these membranes were thought to produce levels of fluorescence which would make analysis impossible. We will show data developed using a Pin-and-Ring TM spotting system (the GMS 417 Arrayer) and an epi-fluorescent confocal laser microscope that employs Flying Objective TM scanning technology (the GMS 418 Array Scanner), demonstrating that conventional chemistries can be used for microarray analysis. We believe that demonstration of the feasibility of this approach will facilitate the migration of more biologists toward the use of microarray technology, as they will now be able to use commercially available instrumentation and familiar methodologies for highly parallel genomic ana...
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