Virus Databases

As tools and technologies for the analysis of biological organisms (including viruses) have improved, the amount of raw data generated by these technologies has increased exponentially. Today's challenge, therefore, is to provide computational systems that support data storage, retrieval, display, and analysis in a manner that allows the average researcher to mine this information for knowledge pertinent to his or her work. Every article in this encyclopedia contains knowledge that has been derived in part from the analysis of such large data sets, which in turn are directly dependent on the databases that are used to organize this information. Fortunately, continual improvements in data-intensive biological technologies have been matched by the development of computational technologies, including those related to databases. This work forms the basis of many of the technologies that encompass the field of bioinformatics. This article provides an overview of database structure and how that structure supports the storage of biological information. The different types of data associated with the analysis of viruses are discussed, followed by a review of some of the various online databases that store general biological, as well as virus-specific, information.