Integrating Biodiversity and Bioresource Information in Korea: Mission of KOBIC (KoreanBioInformation Center)

Chang-Bae Kim*, Jae Woo Yoo, Taehui Hong, Gee-Chan Ryu and Jong Bhak
(Korean BioInformation Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Daejeon
305-333, Republic of Korea)*changbae@kribb.re.kr

Biological species described in the taxonomic community and their biological resources areindispensable for the research of life science. A large number of new species have been discoveredand mutant strains are being produced in laboratories. Therefore, the development of databases andgenomic analysis of the expanding variety of living organisms, their preservation, and distribution
for the efficient proliferating these bioresources and their information have become extremelyimportant. These are not only for basic research but also in the fields of applied science such as
medicine and agriculture. The world is now entering into a biological revolution era where
biological resources became as important as inorganic resource such as petroleum. The foundation of
the biological resource lies in the diversity of biological species and their derivatives.

Under these circumstances, the National Committee for Genetic Resource Management was initiatedin Korea and issued a report on the national bioresource/bioinformation management in 2005. Thiswas spearheaded by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST). The report maderecommendations primarily for the establishment of national databases of information containing thecharacteristics of these organisms and the development of networks for their wide and effective use.
As the first concrete step for the creation of such a system, The Korean BioInformation Center

(KOBIC) was established on March 31, 2006 under the auspices of the MOST. KOBIC’s mainactivities are composed of developing (1) genomics and bioinformatics infrastructure, 2) bioresource,and 3) biodiversity information infrastructure of Korea. KOBIC performs research, development andservice in the above three fields (http://www.kobic.re.kr).

As the national core information facility for biodiversity and bioresource, the objective of KOBIC is
to provide national survey on current status of biodiversity and bioresource management, thesystematic integration of dispersed nationwide of biodiversity and bioresource information, andcollection, analysis, and distribution of biodiversity and bioresource information. It aims to function
as the infrastructure of life science and biotechnology research and the Korean national biodiversity
and bioresource information portal. KOBIC also (1) develops, distributes, supports, and coordinatesaccess to a variety of databases and software, (2) equips every resource with databases, (3) provides
information to users, and (4) develops and promotes standards for databases, data deposition andexchange (Figure 1).

The activities of KOBIC include URL links to related public websites dealing with biodiversity andbioresource information for providing a portal site (Korea Bioresource Information Portal,
http://www.bioall.org; Figure 2) for researchers to find where they can obtain biodiversity andbioresource information. KOBIC’s web portal has a middleware foundation called BioMatrix where
all the major bioinformation resource is tabled as a matrix. Above the BioMatrix level, BioPortal
provides bioinformation service including biodiversity and bioresource information. The websites
contain information from governmental institutes, museums, resource centers, research institutes,and universities. Each link or data entry is composed of (1) the related species name, (2) the database
name, (3) the organization name, (4) the website address, (5) keywords, and (6) systematic
categories for the website or data. An integrated search can be carried out on all the contents of thesedata fields. The contents of KOBIC site updated regularly. Also, KOBIC accepts feedback from endusers. In addition, KOBIC supports openfree acquisition and distribution of bioinformation (seehttp://biolicense.org) and advocates an open hypertext system such as wiki, as exemplified inBioversity.org portal (http://bioversity.org).

KOBIC also collects information concerning biodiversity and bioresource from resource centers byofficial contracts and provides an easy-to-use integrated database to ensure that these resources will
be utilized efficiently. Now, the subjects of 20 networked databases are entomopathogenic fungi,
green algae, reference microorganism cultures, mouse, lichen, plant cell lines, aquatic plant, mutant
fruit fly strains, marine algae, and bacteria cultured from kimchi. The number of databases integrated
will be increased continuously (Figure 3). In addition, to support the database construction ofresources on demand by researchers and institutes who maintain resources, KOBIC provides
software represented as BioALL for supporting systematic management of the information acrossthe country.

For efficiently collaborating with GBIF, KOBIC takes the role of the Korean GBIF governing board(KBIF). The activities of KOBIC for GBIF is providing KBIF portal, host biannual KBIF meeting todiscuss with GBIF national work programs as a mission of biodiversity subcommittee of theNational Committee for Genetic Resource Management and preparing future programs forpromoting collaboration among Asian countries.

Even if biodiversity, bioresource and their information are full of hidden potential, its true value canonly be recognized with actively participating end users. We consider that releasing information to
the public plays a great part in evaluating resources through a broad vision. Moreover, publicizing
information provides enlightenment on structuring an appropriate infrastructure system. We believethat biodiversity and bioresource, and genomic information extracted from these will promote theefficient application of the bioresource and support research of life sciences extensively. It will
establish a basic infrastructure of biotechnology in the era of personalized genomics.

GenomeKOBIC

BioDiversity

BioResoure.

Figure 1. Korean National information data network by KOBIC

R atE.coliStemMouse

Dog

MonkeStrain

FishWormProtein

RNA

TissueCellyYeastcellAlgae

RiceBarleyWheat
Arabidops isKOBIC

Figure 2. Data and databases integration in KOBIC

Figure 3. Korea bioresource information portal maintained by KOBIC