Blueprint Initiative Secures Funding for Asian Node, Launches European Node

NEW YORK, Aug. 3, (GenomeWeb News) - The Blueprint Initiative has secured funding to expand its Biomolecular Interaction Network Database through launching Blueprint Asia in Singapore, and has also launched Blueprint Europe, the organization said today.

Blueprint, based in Toronto, Canada, aims to make its BIND database the largest free database of molecular assembly information from scientific journals, and the successor to GenBank. As of June this year, the database had over 80,000 molecular interactions, the organization said.

The Asian node is slated to contribute 60,000 molecular interaction networks into the BIND database. An additional 4 curators will enter these interactions into the database over the next five years, according to Blueprint Initiative Principal Investigator Dr. Christopher Hogue.

This new initiative is being supported by Singapore's economic development board, the Genomics Institute of Singapore and the National University of Singapore, along with global industry partner Sun Microsystems. Blueprint did not say how much funding would be provided by these organizations.

Blueprint Europe, which will be based in London while pursuing funding opportunities, partner with the Nature Publishing group to curate all biomolecular interactions in every Nature publication ever produced, the organization said.