Genomic applications require facilities for keeping track and manipulating data.
Data need to be described, presented, browsed and queried in a way that scientists can understand. Consequently, there is a need for data management tools that would allow scientists interact efficiently with both relational and object-oriented DBMSs using clear and concise constructs and operations. We have developed data management tools that facilitate the development of genomic databases and that allow scientists to define, query, and browse genomic databases in terms of application-specific objects and protocols. Furthermore, OPM supports modeling inter-database references that allow developing multidatabase systems and provides object versioning constructs that allow keeping track of the history of objects in a genomic database. The suite of OPM data management tools currently target relational DBMSs, and include a reverse engineering tool for determining the OPM description of existing relational genomic databases, a graphical editor for specifying the structure of genomic databases, a translator that maps OPM specifications into DBMS specifications, a graphical browsing and data entry interface for browsing and updating genomic databases.