An effective response to the use of biological organisms as
agents of terrorism or warfare, or to the emergence of new infectious
diseases requires a multi-disciplinary effort involving various
agencies at the local, state and federal levels including public
health officials, hospital personnel, epidemiologists and the
military. In addition to the public health response, a concerted
research effort is necessary to better detect, understand and
respond to these threats. Such research requires development
of environmental detectors and clinical diagnostic aids to provide
us with rapid warning in the event of an outbreak as well as
development of vaccines to prevent infection and antiviral or
antibacterial drugs to cure infection. These efforts require
a comprehensive biological understanding of potential threat
agents, including their molecular biology, genetics, pathogenicity,
epidemiology and evolution. The National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases as well as the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention maintain a list of priority pathogens
that are considered potential bio-threat agents and/or are microbes
that appear to be new or reemerging pathogens (http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/agentlist-category.asp
and http://www.niaid.nih.gov/biodefense/bandc_priority.htm).
Variola virus, the causative agent of smallpox and a member
of the
Poxviridae family of viruses, has perhaps the greatest
potential for use as a bio-weapon and is one of the Category
A pathogens on these priority pathogen lists (
1). In addition,
monkeypox virus, a member of the orthopoxvirus genus that includes
variola virus, has caused a number of disease outbreaks in recent
years, including outbreaks in North America resulting from the
importation of rodents from Africa intended to be sold as pets
(
2,
3).
The use of high-throughput DNA sequencing techniques as well
as other large-scale ‘Systems Biology’ technologies
have led to an unprecedented increase in the amount of available
data. Therefore, one overarching necessity in research efforts
directed at providing a better understanding of priority pathogens
is the need to collect, manage, describe, analyze and publicize
the vast amounts of information generated by modern, high-throughput
biological research. Therefore, the goal of the Poxvirus Bioinformatics
Resource Center (PBRC) is to organize all available information
on virus genetics thus aiding research efforts towards increasing
our knowledge of virus replication and virus–host interaction
on a gene-by-gene and whole genome basis. In addition, the PBRC
is expanding on available knowledge by developing and utilizing
analysis tools that can further probe the information contained
in the genome and gene sequences of these organisms. Since our
goal is to establish an information resource to support research
efforts by the scientific community, we are also soliciting
input from that community to ensure the completeness and, above
all, the accuracy of the information being provided and to ensure
that the software tools provided and in development reflect
the needs of the different research groups using these resources.
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