Munich, Germany (Scicasts) - Just a few genes make enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) extremely dangerous to humans. If it were not for these genes, EHEC would hardly differ from harmless enteric bacteria.

San Francisco, CA (Scicasts) - Genedata, a provider of advanced software solutions for drug discovery and life science research, has announced the release of Genedata Biologics, an off-the-shelf software solution for comprehensive data management and analysis of biologics R&D activities.

Washington, DC (Scicasts) – Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of Georgetown University Medical Center, has announced the launch of the Georgetown Database of Cancer or G-DOC. Under development for two years, G-DOC is a repository for biological information that is normally only available in scattered information libraries and tissue banks, if at all. Data sets grow as researchers deposit new information. G-DOC also contains relevant tools to analyze the data, plus new ones not seen before.

Dresden, Germany (Scicasts) - Transinsight, provider of semantic search technologies, releases the next version of its Enterprise Semantic Intelligence Knowledge Suite at the I-SEMANTICS Conference in Graz, Austria.

San Francisco, CA (Scicasts) - Genedata, a provider of advanced software solutions for drug discovery and life science research, has announced Genedata Selector, a new solution for biotechnological strain development in fermentation-based applications. The latest addition to the Genedata portfolio, Genedata Selector is an integrated data management and analysis system specifically for industrial biotechnology R&D. It supports industrial biotechnology production of feed and food additives, fine chemicals, biofuels, and personal care, pharmaceutical, and agrochemical products.

Durham, NC (Scicasts) - If scientists have identified some two million species, where can you find the latest information about the tree of life that unites them all? According to a report from National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in Durham, North Carolina, an improved database gives scientists and educators access to state-of-the-art knowledge about the evolutionary relationships among living things.

Hinxton and London (Scicasts) - ChEMBLdb, a vast online database of information on the properties and activities of drugs and drug-like small molecules and their targets, launched earlier this week with information on over half a million compounds. The data lie at the heart of translating information from the human genome into successful new drugs in the clinic.

Bethesda, MD. (OBBeC) - Grantees of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), part of the National Institutes of Health, and their international colleagues have launched the first comprehensive database of the oral microbiome, or the approximately 600 distinct microorganisms currently known to live in the mouth.

The free online compendium is called the Human Oral Microbiome Database (HOMD). The database, which went live yesterday as the digital equivalent of an Oxford dictionary of oral microorganisms, provides detailed biological entries for each species and an extensive catalogue of the thousands of genes that these microbes express. The site is located at http://www.homd.org and is overseen by scientists at The Forsyth Institute in Boston and King’s College London in England.

“The HOMD fills a critical research need,” said NIDCR director Dr Lawrence Tabak. “The oral microbiome is extremely rich in data, and HOMD becomes the essential search engine for scientists to view and retrieve this information, generate novel hypotheses, make computational discoveries, and ultimately develop more biologically sound therapies to control oral diseases.”

According to Dr Floyd Dewhirst, a leader of the project and a scientist at The Forsyth Institute, HOMD also introduces the first comprehensive nomenclature system to bring order to the naming of uncultured or previously unnamed oral microbes. The standardized numbering system helps to eliminate the Babel of confusing names and uninformative database designations that have frustrated scientists and sometimes hindered their research.

The database also categorizes each microbe by its 16S rRNA sequence, a distinctive fingerprint of genetic information that scientists have used for the past two decades to identify microorganisms. This sequence information allows the microbes to be placed in a family tree that shows how they are related to one another. For those organisms whose DNA has been sequenced, HOMD provides online tools to view and analyze all of their genes and proteins. Each category of information in the database is interlinked, readily searchable, appropriately annotated, and will be frequently updated to remain current.

Dewhirst noted that although HOMD has officially opened to scientists, the database remains an ongoing project. “We’ve already assembled a great deal of useful information for the research community, but we will continue to expand and refine the database for the next several years,” said Dewhirst. “I can see the Human Oral Microbiome Database serving as a valuable model for other microbiome databases now and in the years to come.”

Informally called “biology’s next revolution,” microbiome studies have opened a needed window into the complex microbial communities that occupy most parts of the human body. These studies will define how microbes contribute to sustaining health and, when their community dynamics are perturbed, play a role in common chronic disease, such as tooth decay and periodontal disease in the mouth. In December 2007, NIH launched the Human Microbiome Project that initially will sequence all of the genes, or genomes, of 600 representative microorganisms sampled from microbial communities in the mouth, skin, digestive tract, nose, and female urogenital tract. Additional studies are either under way or under development.Among those already well under way is a NIDCR-supported project to compile a full catalogue of the complete genomes of all oral microbes. It has generated a tremendous amount of data and, coupled with the decades of more traditional studies of oral bacteria, the need for a comprehensive, user-friendly database has become a priority.

“The oral microbiome is currently better understood than those of other sites in the body, such as the intestine,” said Dr. Bruce Paster, also at The Forsyth Institute and another project scientist. “Since oral microorganisms appear in infections throughout the human body, the HOMD database certainly will be useful to physicians. Likewise, microbiologists in industry will find HOMD helpful because oral microbes sometimes contaminate food or the drug manufacturing process.”