anti viral monoclonal antibody database on a GOPHER

[ROBERT COELEN]

Hi,

A friend of mine, together with some of his mates are in the process of 
putting together a version of a piece of software widely known as KA9Q. This 
piece of software runs on an IBM compatible computer (286 upwards). Its 
functions are : gateway, mailbox, ftp server, and gopher (among other things). 
The really special thing about this particular implementation is that the 
gopher sports to types of search engines (two ways of searching information on 
the computer). The first one is a text type search and the second is designed 
to search dbase files. Whilst their is some limitation on the size of the 
database that can be loaded, it is still large enough to be very useful. To be 
able to do searches on fields, by supplying a keyword, opens the door for 
setting up a set of dbase files containing fields that describe monoclonal 
antibodies. Because of the size limitation of the dbase files (maybe at some 
stage this could be eliminated) I propose to run a gopher which has dbase 
files for different families of viruses. The fields in the files would 
therefore include: virus, protein, epitope, neutralising (yes/no), isotype, 
availability (yes/no), form in which available (hybridoma, ascites, cell 
culture s/n), owner, owner's address, cost (if any), etc, etc.

Needless to say, I don't want to be typing in all these details. So I shall 
write a small program which will make it very easy to supply all the details 
in a comma-delimited file, which can be transmitted by email or ftp.

In the first instance I would a response from you as to which fields you would 
like to see in the database. I am sure there are other useful fields which I 
haven't mentioned yet. Once I receive sufficient responses, I shall summarise 
the definitive list. If I get no further responses, I'll write the program and 
then make this available by ftp or floppy on request. As far as the families 
are concerned I think it would be wise to stick to the current ICTV 
classification.

Comments please !!!!



Kindest regards,


Robert
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Dr R.J. Coelen                             phone 61 - 9 - 389 3915
Dept of Microbiology                       fax   61 - 9 - 389 2912
University of Western Australia            snail Nedlands, 6009
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