MISSISSAUGA, Ont.--Base4 Bioinformatics was selected by the National Research Council here to provide administrative and technical support to the users of the Canadian Bioinformatics Resource that was launched last month. According to the council, the resource is North America's largest DNA sequence retrieval system, with a high-speed computer network that enables scientists to conduct research and development in molecular biology and biotechnology online. Base4's president, Martin Sumner-Smith, said that his company's selection by the research council represents a continuation of its collaboration "to make state-of-the-art bioinformatics tools and worldwide data available to the research community using high-speed networking."
The Canadian Bioinform-atics Resource will give researchers in Canada's industry, universities, hospitals, and government laboratories access to DNA data accumulated worldwide, enabling them to retrieve detailed information about any known gene, according to Base4. The network is made up of two units: CBR-I is an intranet site with more than 40 servers and workstations at seven sites across the country accessible to National Research Council-partnered researchers and the private sector; CBR-II is a public-access server in Halifax providing bioinformatics access to noncommercial users.