Seminar — Yasunori Yamamoto

LThe Database Center for Life Science was launched in Japan on last April for facilitating life science research in Japan. Genome and post-genome projects have made thousands of data. They are stored in several kinds of databases, and making good use of them effectively and efficiently is the key for research progress in life science. However, many researchers say that finding required databases is hard, and that databases can be difficult to utilize. This reflects the insufficiency of environment or infrastructure for effective and efficient database use. In addition, there are the following issues: those databases which are out of funds are not maintained, and results of laarge research projects are not necessarily widely available for the public. DBCLS integrates and maintains those databases and develops information technology and a portal site for facilitating researchers usability. As the core institute of Integrated Database Project launched by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), DBCLS proceeds this project in cooperation with related institutions. DBCLS also aims at providing researchers with services that can be fully used as a portal for accessing databases.