Bioinformatics Core

The North Dakota INBRE Computational Chemistry and Biology Network (CCBN) consists of two networked computational laboratories, one on the North Dakota State University campus and the other on the University of North Dakota campus. Each laboratory is equipped with six SGI Fuel workstations and one SGI Origin300 server with eight processors.

Using fees from the university's Technology Fee program, the NDSU cluster is equipped with an electrical back-up service, a projector and a screen facilitating site-to-site workshops, redundant cooling units, and a color laser printer. The UND site hosts the statewide licenses for Accelrys, Inc., software for macromolecular modeling. The NDSU site hosts the statewide licenses for Tripos, Inc software for computer assisted drug design.

Both campuses have Gaussian, Inc., licenses that have become useful components of the CCBN. The laboratories feature the SGI Vizserver software that enables the users in one lab to see the screen of the instructor in the other lab. The software, along with teleconferencing units, is essential for shared workshops and collaborations. The CCBN coordinators offer periodic training workshops on how to use the modeling software.

The two laboratories of the CCBN are fully utilized by biomedical researchers at UND and NDSU. Over the next five years, the CCBN will extend expertise and support for modeling to other researchers in the North Dakota INBRE network.

NDSU Computational Chemistry and Biology Coordinator
Stefan Balaz, Ph.D.
North Dakota State University
Phone: (701) 231-7749
Fax: (701) 231-7606
Stefan.Balaz@ndsu.nodak.edu

Databases

  • BioMed Central provides journals on a wide variety of subjects to North Dakota INBRE researchers.
  • Faculty of 1000 from Biology Reports Ltd.
  • Entrez cross-database search
  • Free Medical Journals is dedicated to the promotion of free access to medical journals over the Internet.
  • Sequence and Other Non-Bibliographic Databases
  • Highwire Press, Free online full-text articles
  • PubMed, a service of the National Library of Medicine, provides access to over 12 million MEDLINE citations back to the mid-1960's. It is free and available at any location with Internet access
  • PubMed Central, NIH digital archive of life sciences journal literature
  • Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) databases, Instructions for downloading this software are available from the UND Library of the Health Sciences Web site. Four accesses are available on the UND and NDSU campuses only.
  • Scopus, the world's largest abstract and indexing database, offers access to 14,000 peer-reviewed titles from more than 4,000 international publishers. Use it to research a subject and to see who is citing your articles. Available on all INBRE campuses.
  • TOXNET is a cluster of databases on toxicology, hazardous chemicals and related areas.

Free Online Resources

  • SuperArray Bioscience Corporation - SuperArray offers free, on-line seminars covering relevant tools and techniques in molecular biology. Attendance is free, but registration is required. Click here for a listing of current seminar titles.

Journals

American Society of Microbiology Journals. Current issues of these journals within the past six months are available to UND and NDSU only. Through Highwire Press, back issues of these journals are available to all researchers.

Annual Reviews. Access is to all volumes from beginning of publication.

BioMed Central. Biology Journals

Cell Press Journals

Current Protocols

These journals are available to UND and NDSU only. Other sites must use interlibrary loan.

Titles available at UND are:

Title available at NDSU is:

Highwire Press

Nature Journals

Nature Reviews

Oxford Journals Online

Science Online

Software

The Vector NTI database, version 10, is now "open access" and available for free downloads here.

Instructions for registering, downloading and installing the software, and requesting a software license are available here on the Harley French Library Web site.

Please note that when you register and request a free license, select "Purchase Order" as your "Payment Method" and enter "freeNTI" (no quotes) as your "Purchase Order Number." You DO NOT need to enter a credit card number. Each license for which you register is valid for installation on three computers.

Support from the company will be the responsibility of individual laboratories, as it is no longer cost effective for INBRE to support an institution-wide contract. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Judy Rieke at (701) 777-4129.