What used to be a trial and error approach involving many generations of plants over a period of years, promises to become a much more controlled and rapid procedure. In the spring of 1991, McCarthy was approached by USDA about adapting LBL human genome database models for use with plant genome data. Using database design tools developed by LBL's data management group under Victor Markowitz, McCarthy and other members of ICSD's genome computing group began working with USDA- sponsored researchers to develop databases for the genomes of wheat, soybean, and forest trees. Its open architecture enables groups like ours to build on its foundation. Therefore, at LBL we've been able to make major contributions to design and development of new display modules and extensions to the database core.
Information is presented in multiple window displays containing text, diagrams, and pictures.
Scientists can browse data using a computer mouse and click on components such as gene names to bring up detail windows. This helps move information much more quickly from lab notebooks into public archives. These databases have since been uploaded into the National Agricultural Library's Plant Genome Database so that researchers connected to the InterNet can now run them from computers anywhere in the world. The strong cooperation between different collaborating groups has already brought us a long way.