ALFRED: an allele frequency database for microevolutionary studies

Many kinds of microevolutionary studies require data on multiple polymorphisms in multiple populations. Increasingly, and especially for human populations, multiple research groups collect relevant data and those data are dispersed widely in the literature. ALFRED has been designed to hold data from many sources and make them available over the web. Data are assembled from multiple sources, curated, and entered into the database. Multiple links to other resources are also established by the curators. A variety of search options are available and additional geographic based interfaces are being developed. The database can serve the human anthropologic genetic community by identifying what loci are already typed on many populations thereby helping to focus efforts on a common set of markers. The database can also serve as a model for databases handling similar DNA polymorphism data for other species.