From left to right: Jorge Cabrera, Mark Spasser, César Flores, Dr. Kay Tomlinson, and Dr. Alfredo Sánchez
Volume LXXXV Number Four July/August 1997
CENTER FOR BOTANICAL INFORMATICS
Communicating With Computers
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH has always relied on gathering and sharing huge amounts
of information. Botanists working on enormous projects need to collaborate
and share data with colleagues located all over the world Managing these
asks efficiently keeps costs down and produces more rapid results. To meet
the challenge of updating botanical research methods, in 1995 the Garden
created the Center for Botanical Informatics (CBI), directed by Dr. John
Schnase. The Center develops new ways of combining computers and communications
to support scientific research; it also creates new sources of revenue for
the Garden from the information products and software tools it develops.
A Five-Year Plan
CBI has three immediate goals .Over the next five years it will provide practical
support for research projects at The Garden, train students in applied
bioinformatics, and introduce information products and services for commercial
development and use by the global scientific community.
Results for the Real World
CBI develops innovative communication strategies and software by finding
solutions for actual research projects based at the Garden, including the
Flora of North America, Flora of China, and Flora Mesoamericana "Botanical
research provides an ideal laboratory for testing new technology, and our
work benefits the Garden at the same time," said Dr. Schnase.
Changing the Way Science Is Done
CBI is developing ways to utilize the Internet to allow projects to proceed
much faster than is possible with traditional methods. Manuscripts and other
documents can be submitted, edited, discussed, and reviewed electronically,
without the need to mail paper copies. This is critically important for the
Flora of North America, for example, which has nearly 800 contributors who
live and work throughout North America.
People and Computers
Social informatics" studies the way people and computers interact in a work
setting. Dr Kay Tomlinson, assistant director of CBI, and Mark Spasser,
bioinformatics coordinator, develop projects in this area, including a
collaboration with the School of Library and Information Science at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In January the Garden and CBI
initiated a cooperative research agreement with the Laboratory of Interactive
and Cooperative Technologies of the Universidad de las Américas Puebla,
Mexico (UDLA). The partnership will allow both institutions to explore
technological solutions to current problems in managing large-scale information
projects. The group in Mexico is headed by Dr. Alfredo Sanchez, an assistant
professor at the Department of Computer Systems Engineering at UDLA.
Training and Technology
| Education is an important part of CBl's mission. This June and July, the Center is sponsoring its first Summer Training Program in Biological Informatics. The program includes lectures in systematics, taxonomy, and biodiversity information management, presented by researchers working at the Garden and other institutions. In addition to Dr. Sanchez, four members of the research team from UDLA are in St. Louis for the summer program. The participants are Maricarmen Amezquita, assistant researcher; Cesar Flores, a master's level graduate student; and Cristina Lopez and Jorge Cabrera, advanced undergraduate students. Students in the Summer Training Program are working on specific informatics problems for the Flora of North America and flora of China projects. Continuing research projects begun last semester at UDLA, the students are developing prototype software tools for the flora projects. | From left to right: Jorge Cabrera, Mark Spasser, César Flores, Dr. Kay Tomlinson, and Dr. Alfredo Sánchez |