1999

12/27	IgBLAST	IgBLAST is now available as part of our suite of specialized BLAST services. IgBLAST was developed to facilitate analysis of immunoglobulin sequences in GenBank. It allows blastp or blastn searches of either the nr database or a special database of Immunoglobulin (Ig) germline V (variable region) genes. Searches may be limited to either human or mouse genes.   The output of IgBLAST consists of a multiple sequence alignment between the query and database hits with alignment regions of biological interest indicated. It simplifies the process of identifying the related sequences by matching the results to the closest germline V genes. IgBLAST also allows immunologists to find Variable, D, or J regions of known sequence that are related to sequences important to their research.
12/13	BankIt 3.0	A new version of BankIt is now available. BankIt 3.0 is designed to increase submitters' ability to validate and annotate their sequences before submitting them to GenBank. Sequences and their features will be automatically checked at the submission stage to confirm that they are complete and biologically correct, and sequences will also be checked during this stage for foreign, contaminating sequence, such as vector or linker sequence.   BankIt 3.0 provides submitters with two new features to allow more specific sequence annotation. The source organism modifier list has been expanded, and all coding regions (CDSs) will be conceptually translated, whether the CDS nucleotide intervals, the resulting protein sequence, or both, are provided by the submitters.
12/10	Textbooks linked to PubMed	In collaboration with book publishers, NCBI is adapting textbooks for the Web and linking them to the PubMed literature database. These textbooks will provide background information to PubMed users for exploring concepts they encounter in PubMed citations. The first textbook to be included online is Molecular Biology of the Cell, 3rd ed., by Alberts et al. More books will be linked in the future.
10/07	VecScreen	VecScreen is a new tool for screening a nucleotide sequence for vector, linker, and adapter contamination. This tool is designed to help researchers identify and remove any segments of vector origin prior to sequence analysis or submission. NCBI developed VecScreen to minimize the incidence and impact of vector contamination in public sequence databases. In the future, BankIt will automatically run submissions through VecScreen.
07/21	Coffee Break	Coffee Break is a collection of short reports on recent biological discoveries. Each report incorporates interactive tutorials that show how bioinformatics tools are used as a part of the research process.
04/13	LocusLink	LocusLink provides a single query interface to curated sequence and descriptive information about genes. It presents information on official nomenclature, aliases, sequence accession numbers, phenotypes, EC numbers, MIM numbers, UniGene clusters, map information, and relevant Web sites. The current scope is human; other organisms will be added in the future.
04/13	Reference Sequences (RefSeq)	The NCBI Reference Sequence project provides curated sequence data and related information for the community to use as a standard. Whereas GenBank is a repository of sequences, the RefSeq database will be a non-redundant set of reference sequences, including constructed genomic contigs, mRNAs, proteins, and, in the future, entire chromosomes. The initial release includes human mRNA and protein reference sequences; other sequence types and organisms will be added in the future.
04/01	BLAST Course	The BLAST course includes three short articles by Stephen Altschul developed from notes for a course given at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Topics covered are: statistics of sequence similarity scores, statistics of PSI-BLAST scores, and iterated profile searches with PSI-BLAST (which includes a working example).
03/19	Human Genome Resources	The Human Genome Resources page serves as a focal point for data and tools related to sequencing and analyzing the human genome. Genome maps, sequencing progress, and data on genetic variation and gene expression are included, along with news items and meeting announcements.
03/19	Human Genome Sequencing	The Human Genome Sequencing page provides current information on the progress of the Human Genome Project and access to the data. BLAST, text queries, browsing by chromosome, and sequence downloading are available.
03/19	Serial Analysis of Gene Expression (SAGE)	Serial Analysis of Gene Expression, or SAGE, is an experimental technique designed to quantitatively measure gene expression. The SAGEmap Web site includes mapping pages (SAGEtag to gene and gene to SAGEtag), descriptions of the Web site building process, analysis tools, references, definitions, and downloading of mapping data.