WebGimm: An integrated web-based platform for cluster analysis, functional analysis, and interactive visualization of results

Cluster analysis methods have been extensively researched, but the adoption of new methods is often hindered by technical barriers in their implementation and use. WebGimm is a free cluster analysis web-service, and an open source general purpose clustering web-server infrastructure designed to facilitate easy deployment of integrated cluster analysis servers based on clustering and functional annotation algorithms implemented in R. Integrated functional analyses and interactive browsing of both, clustering structure and functional annotations provides a complete analytical environment for cluster analysis and interpretation of results. The Java Web Start client-based interface is modeled after the familiar cluster/treeview packages making its use intuitive to a wide array of biomedical researchers. For biomedical researchers, WebGimm provides an avenue to access state of the art clustering procedures. For Bioinformatics methods developers, WebGimm offers a convenient avenue to deploy their newly developed clustering methods. WebGimm server, software and manuals can be freely accessed at http://ClusterAnalysis.org/.