Title: Molecular Biology Databases on the Internet

URL: http://bioinformatics.weizmann.ac.il/mb/molecular_biol_databases.html

Date Reviewed: 5/8/00

Description:
A comprehensive and well-organized collection of links not only to biological databases but also to useful bioinformatics tools available on the web. eg.
    - Sequence databases include standards such as GenBank and TIGR (many bacterial genomes) and more unusual ones such as databases of gene knockouts, cytogenetic abnormalities and and cancer genetics.
    - Protein databases include PRINTS (protein motif fingerprints), and structure-based databases such as the Protein Hydrophilicity/Hydrophobicity Search and Comparison Server.
    - The Enzymes and Metabolic Pathways link includes the Biocatalysis/Biodegradation Database (Microbial biocatalytic reactions and biodegradation pathways primarily for xenobiotic, chemical compounds).
    - Subject-specific databases include PKR (protein kinase resource) and EPODB (erythropoesis genes), and a p53 database
    - Cell biology and cell lines include ATCC and CLDB.

Strengths:
Practically eveything is out there. The first level of organization is reasonably good

Weaknesses:
    - A LOT of redundancy. About 90% of the links came up more than once because there are sometimes links to a collection of other links out there on the web. This is also very costly on the organization of this site. Sometimes you end up looking at links that are very different from what you want to get.

    - Some of these secondary links should be included as primary links in the proper category on the MDB page itself i.e. this needs some overhauling, reorganization and updating. Sometimes primary links are just plain missing where they should be.

eg under "Species-Specific Databases" there is a catgory for zebrafish with no link shown.  But under "Genomic Information" -> DDBJ -> GRDB you come up with zebrafish, medakafish, Pufferfish and killifish databases.

    eg. KEGG should be included under the category of Enzymes and Metabolic Pathways. But this site contains a link to "Other Pathway Databases", which actually is a page from the KEGG database. But it doesn't include a link to KEGG itself.
 

Comprehensiveness:

Total - if you have the time to search through it all!

Timeliness:

Good

Ease of Use:

OK - could be better as described above!

Responsiveness:

Quite quick - though some links already seems to be outdated!

Sinilar or Related sites:
 
 

Overall Rating: 1 to 5 stars

3 and a 1/2