AVAILABLE: ANONYMOUS FTP FOR VIROLOGY

[Ed Rybicki]

From:          Self <MICRO/ED>
To:            jclewley at crc.ac.uk (Dr. J.P. Clewley)
Subject:       RE: AVAILABLE: ANONYMOUS FTP FOR VIROLOGY
Reply-to:      ed at micro.uct.ac.za
Date:          28 Jul 93 10:19:45

> Hi, I'd like to second the idea of a specific virology archive. Not only
> as has just been suggested but also a database of viral sequences grouped
> according to family/genus/species etc. something separate from GenBank/EMBL

But it is really easy to get sequences from the GenBank/NCBI/EMBL
databases: Gopher is amazing at doing searches using single words or even
Boolean statements; keeping yet another database updated could be an
unnecessary chore.

> Also, a database of viral taxomony - today I needed to know how many
> rhinoviruses have been described/serologically typed. where can I go
> for up to date information? There is nothing on-line I know of, surely
> we (virologists) can do something more recent than the last Intervirology
> taxonomy issue?

Aren't the Australian National University doing soemthing along those
lines?  I know one can ftp/gopher in to ANU and access their taxonomic
database; I am not clear on whether it is only for Australian viruses, tho.

But yes, as a current member of the Plant Virus Subcommittee of the ICTV,
it often bugs me that I have to fax someone to get the current thinking on
plant virus taxonomy, when I could just ftp into somewhere / gopher search
an archive, and be clued up without recourse to another person.  Claude
Fauquet who is editing the current ICTV update is a computer wonk of long
standing - maybe we should gently pressure him/ANother to get this sort of
data into some sort of easily accessible format (NOT the fancy scheme
presently under consideration!!) on a computer somewhere where we could
get ftp/gopher access - as flat text files, preferably.

Any ideas, anyone?  Shall we suggest it at the ICV, where the ICTV will
also be meeting?

  ____________________________________________________________________
 | Ed Rybicki, PhD             |       "Lord, won't you buy me        |
 | (ed at micro.uct.ac.za)        |                                      |
 | Dept Microbiology           |         A Mer-ce-des Benz..."        |
 | University of Cape Town     |                                      |
 | Private Bag, Rondebosch     |                                      |
 | 7700, South Africa          |           - Janis Joplin             |
 | fax: 27-21-650 4023         |                                      |
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