Can the Grid Help to Solve the Data Integration Problems in Molecular Biology?

Abstract

Molecular biology is increasingly relying on globallydistributed information repositories. The quality andperformance of research and development in this fieldwill depend on highly flexible, performant and intuitiveways of accessing and integrating these resources intolocal information processing environments. In contrast tomany ongoing Grid developments, the molecular biology community requires high-informational as opposed tohigh-performance computing Grids. This paper outlines ageneral distributed informational computing scenario inthe context of molecular biology. It focuses oninformation integration (data warehousing) and datamining as two crucial Grid methodologies of futuremolecular biology computing environments. Thepresented scenario raises a number of questions, as thebasis for discussion, on the role of emerging Gridtechnologies.