The three-year funding, from the National Center for Research Resources, will allow the scientists to improve their protein-identification software, called Genome Fingerprint Scanning, and distribute it more widely free of charge. The program is capable of matching protein mass-spectrometry data directly to unannotated or unfinished genome sequences.
Led by Morgan Giddings, the researchers plan to include peptide maps that users can browse overlaid on a genome, expand the list of searchable genomes, provide multi-genome searching, automate updates of the genome databases and distribution of the computing load, and include searching of multi-exon genes. Furthermore, they intend to make the program available on additional computing platforms.