Laboratory diary

Nearly two years have passed since we started to run our BRH data resources site, where you can search several kinds of databases, including spider genomic and transcriptomic sequences, gene expression data, images and movies. Genome browsers for the spider Parasteatoda tepidariorum are also available, by which you can examine gene expression profiles at successive stages of embryonic development. Some of the data are linked to related NCBI information. The functionality and usability of the databases have been being strengthened.

Recently we added an images/movies database, which include research data published in our papers. You can search the database using keywords, for example, time-lapse or cell_labeling. Many of the data are from our open access paper. They can be downloaded and used according to the licenses. However, please be careful, you might have problems depending on the environments of your access terminal.

I feel that research data tend to be scattered among many different journal sites. It is not easy to follow what data evidence exists for specific knowledge. Even in our own laboratory, data sharing is often problematic. In some cases, supplementary data published at journal sites are not sufficiently high in quality due to file size limitations. Effective data sharing is the important part of research in long term, enabling us to deepen our exploration.

It may be a little bit difficult for non-specialists or non-researchers to use the databases. We would like to make continuing effort to develop user-friendly systems.

[ Hiroki Oda ]