The Plant Bioinformatics group within the Genetics programme has been developed with two main objectives. The first of these is to provide support for the scientific infrastructure within the programme. This involves both the provision of direct advice and support to individual scientists as well as the generation and development of analysis pipelines, database systems and web portals to support individual projects. The second aim is to develop a series of computational biology led approaches to science. This involves such areas as the, the development of new analytical and visualisation tools and the exploitation of comparative sequence and map information.

One major area of activity of the group in recent years has been to provide the tools to develop sequence based molecular markers and to exploit them in genetic mapping and QTL analysis as well as germplasm studies and comparative genomics.  Currently the primary thrust of this work is focussed on the development of SNP markers in barley (Barley SNPdb) and the development of a database infrastructure and software tools (Germinate) for plant genotype data. 

Our work involves a close partnership with the staff of Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS) and through the Scottish Bioinformatics Research Network (SBRN) strong links to other Scottish institutes and universities. In addition we have strong links to the informatics groups at the John Innes Centre, Rothamsted Research and IGER through the new BBSRC/Scottish Government  Monogram programme in Grass and Cereal Genomics as well as the CGIAR centres through the Generation Challenge Programme.

You can find more information about our software development and research using the following links:

• Germinate
• Potato Decision Support
• Scottish Bioinformatics Research Network (SBRN)
• Software
• Databases