What is Genbank Database

GenBank is the NIH genetic sequence database, an annotated collection
of all publicly available DNA sequences. GenBank (at NCBI), together
with the DNA DataBank of Japan (DDBJ) and the European Molecular
Biology Laboratory (EMBL) comprise the International Nucleotide
Sequence Database Collaboration. These three organizations exchange
data on a daily basis.

GenBank grows at an exponential rate, with the number of nucleotide
bases doubling approximately every 14 months. Currently, GenBank
contains more than 13 billion bases from over 100,000 species.

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Biological Databases

What Is a Biological Database?

A biological database is a large, organized body of persistent data, usually associated with computerized software designed to update, query, and retrieve components of the data stored within the system. A simple database might be a single file containing many records, each of which includes the same set of information. For example, a record associated with a nucleotide sequence database typically contains information such as contact name, the input sequence with a description of the type of molecule, the scientific name of the source organism from which it was isolated, and often, literature citations associated with the sequence.
For researchers to benefit from the data stored in a database, two additional requirements must be met:
easy access to the information

a method for extracting only that information needed to answer a specific biological questionThe data in GenBank are made available in a variety of ways, each tailored to a particular use, such as data submission or sequence searching.



At NCBI, many of our databases are linked through a unique search and retrieval system, called Entrez. Entrez (pronounced ahn' tray) allows a user to not only access and retrieve specific information from a single database but to access integrated information from many NCBI databases. For example, the Entrez Protein database is cross-linked to the Entrez Taxonomy database. This allows a researcher to find taxonomic information (taxonomy is a division of the natural sciences that deals with the classification of animals and plants) for the species from which a protein sequence was derived.

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Importance of Bioinformatics

Why Is Bioinformatics So Important?
Although a human disease may not be found in exactly the same form in animals, there may be sufficient data for an animal model that allow researchers to make inferences about the process in humans.


The rationale for applying computational approaches to facilitate the understanding of various biological processes includes:
a more global perspective in experimental design


the ability to capitalize on the emerging technology of database-mining - the process by which testable hypotheses are generated regarding the function or structure of a gene or protein of interest by identifying similar sequences in better characterized organisms

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