BioManager

BioManager is an integrated bioinformatics workspace providing a single, user-friendly, and intuitive web interface to hundreds of powerful bioinformatics tools.

Users can upload or paste their data into BioManager or use Text Search to extract data from one of the available databases, including GenBank, SWISS-PROT, Blocks, Prosite, Enzyme, Pfam, and StackDB.

BioManager records and allows users to view the history of all their analyses, providing a "virtual lab book". Regular analyses can be recorded as a macro for easy automation and standardization.

BioManager provides Protocols to guide users through unfamiliar analyses and an extensive on-line help system .

BioManager provides access to over 200 programs for analyses such as:

• Sequence database similarity search
• Pairwise sequence comparison
• Nucleic acid structure and analysis
• Gene detection and translation
• Multiple sequence analysis
• Statistical analysis
• Motif and pattern analysis
• Protein structure and function
• Molecular modelling
• Molecular evolution
• PCR primer design
• Mapping

Chipster is a microarray analysis tool developed by CSC in Helsinki Finland. Access to this tool is included in the subscription to BioManager.

Access to BioManager requires the purchase of an annual subscription. This gives users unlimited access to BioManager.

Subscription to BioManager is on a Departmental basis. The Department purchases access at a certain level, allowing a certain number of people access to the system. Every person (including students, technicians, researchers, and academics) who accesses the system must have their own user name and password and counts as one user, even if their use is sporadic.

Academic pricing is available to all universities and non-government not-for-profit organisations, including hospitals. Government pricing is available to federal or state government funded organisations and institutions.

Australia and New Zealand

Table 1: Annual subscription fees for Australian and New Zealand customers. Prices are quoted in Australian dollars and are ex-GST. A further 10% GST applies to Australian customers.

International

Table 2: Annual subscription fees for international customers. Prices are quoted in Australia dollars. Prices for commercial and government funded organisations are available on request. Prices are negotiable for developing countries.

Student accounts are for use by course work students as part of a unit or stream of study. Student accounts are assigned only for the duration of the course. Data is deleted at the conclusion of the class.

A subscriber may have as many student accounts as they have standard accounts within their subscription. Additional accounts are charged at a fee of $12 per account (ex-GST). Charges are based on the number of simultaneous users of BioManager. For example, a set of 25 accounts could be used by two distinct classes of 25 students.

The following references contain information on the development and use of BioManager and previous versions of the application (BioNavigator, WebANGIS, etc.) and may be cited in papers making use of BioManager.

• Cattley S and Arthur JW, BioManager: the use of a bioinformatics web application as a teaching tool in undergraduate bioinformatics training, Briefings in Bioinformatics, 8:457-465, 2007
• Littlejohn TG, Bioinformatics in Australia, Bioinformatics 16:849-850, 2000
• Littlejohn TG, BioNavigator- Real science, Australian Biochemist 31:48-49, 2000
• Littlejohn TG, Bucholtz CA, Campbell RMM, Gaeta BA, Huynh C, and Kim SH, Computing for biotechnology - WebANGIS, Australasian Biotechnology 6:211- 217, 1996
• Littlejohn TG, Bioinformatics: The Essential Ingredient, Todays
  Life Science 8:28-33, 1996
• Littlejohn TG, Biocomputing at ANGIS: a 24 hour a day Dry Lab, Uniserve Science News 4:7-8, 1996