On-line virus databases

[David G Green]

 Australian National University Bioinformatics Facility (ANUBF)

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                  VIRUS DATABASES ON-LINE
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The following databases on viruses are now available on-line from
the Australian National University's Bioinformatics Facility:

1. Approved names of virus families/groups and members
2. Viruses of Plants in Australia

The information is presented both as searchable databases (via
Gopher/WAIS) and as ASCII files (see details below). Hypertext
access will be available when the ANUBF's World Wide Web service
becomes active (soon).


1. APPROVED NAMES OF VIRUS FAMILIES/GROUPS AND MEMBERS

The first set deals with a list of virus names as compiled in
"The Classification and Nomenclature of Viruses" (1991), Fifth
Report by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses
(ICTV), Edts Francki, R.I.B. and Fauquet, C.M.; Knudson, D.L.
and Brown, F. for the Virology Division International Union of
Microbiological Societies.

Presently work is being done on the development of a standardized
code for virus descriptors, the cornerstone for a worldwide
universal virus database "ICTVdB".  This work on the code is
carried out under the umbrella of the ICTV data committee.
However, the initiative for a standardization came from Lois
Blaine of the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) and
therefore it is founded by ATCC through the support of the
National Science Foundation of America (NSF).


2. VIRUSES OF PLANTS IN AUSTRALIA

The second set of databases deals with the description of plant
viruses that are compiled as part of the Virus Identification
Data Exchange (VIDE) project.  VIDE has been developed by
A.J. Gibbs of the Australian National University, Research
School of Biological Sciences over the last ten years.  In this
project diagnostic information on all plant viruses are collected
using the DELTA (DEscription Language for TAxonomy) database
system developed by M.J. Dallwitz, CSIRO Entomology, Canberra.
The complete set of plant virus descriptions will be released
soon at this site.  Thus far, we have displayed only the
Australian specific data on plant viruses, their distribution,
host plants, vectors and agricultural aspects.



You can access the databases as follows ...


FTP ARCHIVE

Use ftp to connect to our server life.anu.edu.au
Use the login name anonymous and your email address as the password.
The virus databases are held in the directory /pub/viruses.


GOPHER SERVER

To access the server point your gopher software at this address:

Name=BioInformatics gopher at ANU
Host=life.anu.edu.au
Type=1
Port=70
Path=


ABOUT ANU'S BIOINFORMATICS FACILITY

The Australian National University's BioInformatics Facility is
a small group of researchers and programmers located within the
Research School of Biological Sciences. It is affiliated with
ANU's Centre for Molecular Structure and Function (CMSF),
Centre for Information Science Research (CISR), and
Supercomputer Facility (ANUSF).

______________________________________________________________
For further information about the virus databases contact:

name            Dr Cornelia Buchen-Osmond

email           buchen at life.anu.edu.au

address         Research School of Biological Research
                Australian National University
                GPO Box 475
                Canberra ACT 2601 AUSTRALIA

phone           61-6-249-4842
fax             61-6-249-0758

date            16 April 1993