Wang Lili, Lipsey Kim, Murray Carol, Prendergast Neville, Schoening Paul
Bernard Becker Medical Library, Washington University, School of Medicine, Campus Box 8132, 660 S Euclid Ave, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
Med Ref Serv Q. 2007 Summer;26(2):87-98. doi: 10.1300/J115v26n02_08.
The need for a Bioinformatics Program became apparent after repeated requests from researchers for bioinformatics resources and the University's announcement of BioMed 21, a 300 million dollars biomedical science initiative to bring "new knowledge of the human genetic blueprint to the patient's bedside and change how illnesses are understood, diagnosed, and successfully treated." A Bioinformatics Specialist with a strong background in the fields of Molecular Biology and Biostatistics was hired. Program development started in 2003. Initially, three core courses were developed: Sequence Similarity Search, Genetic Variation, and Human Genome Resources. Each of these courses was offered twice per semester. Additionally, partnerships were established within the University Medical School Community (e.g., the Genome Sequencing Center) to license and teach Spotfire's DecisionSite for Functional Genomics, a software package used to analyze microarray data. From March to May 2005, seven Spotfire classes were taught. Each Spotfire class consisted of seven hours of classroom work. Also, in-depth consultations were scheduled with faculty and researchers to address their specific needs. These consultations led to requests for other software packages to purchase and manage, including Lasergene and CSD (Cambridge Crystal Structure Database). Efforts to reach outside of the University Community were made through the development of a Bioinformatics Web site.
在研究人员多次请求提供生物信息学资源以及大学宣布开展“生物医学21计划”（一项3亿美元的生物医学科学倡议，旨在将“人类基因蓝图的新知识应用于患者床边，并改变疾病的理解、诊断和成功治疗方式”）之后，设立生物信息学项目的需求变得显而易见。于是聘请了一位在分子生物学和生物统计学领域具有深厚背景的生物信息学专家。项目开发始于2003年。最初，开发了三门核心课程：序列相似性搜索、基因变异和人类基因组资源。每门课程每学期开设两次。此外，还与大学医学院社区（如基因组测序中心）建立了合作关系，以获得Spotfire公司的功能基因组学决策站点软件包的许可并开展教学，该软件包用于分析微阵列数据。2005年3月至5月，共开设了七期Spotfire课程。每期Spotfire课程包括七个小时的课堂教学。此外，还安排了与教师和研究人员的深入咨询，以满足他们的特定需求。这些咨询导致了对购买和管理其他软件包的请求，包括Lasergene和CSD（剑桥晶体结构数据库）。通过开发生物信息学网站，努力拓展到大学社区之外。
