Science, Volume 292, Number 5523, Issue of 8 June 2001

Two bioinformatics companies are hoping the Canadian government will join their bid to create a massive new public database on protein interactions. Computer giant IBM and MDS Proteomics, a Canadian company, last week announced that they will provide $3 million each for the Biomolecular Interaction Network Database (BIND).

Blueprint Worldwide Inc., a nonprofit corporation organized to oversee BIND, hopes to persuade governments and other companies to put up $50 million for what it sees as a global repository on protein, RNA, and DNA interactions. If successful, BIND will help promote bioinformatics in Canada and encourage researchers to standardize their data, says Tony Pawson, a researcher at the Samuel Lunenfeld Institute in Toronto, who co-founded Blueprint.

Category: 52. Genetic Banks and Databases, 54. Proteomics