GenDB - A Database for the Integrated Storage of Phenotypes and Genotypes

Genotyping, genome-sequencing and the storage of the enormous amount of incurred data is one of the most difficult tasks in bioinformatics. Genetic information shows many special characteristics, which complicate the process of administrating: Especially the complexity of data, the high amount of variability, furthermore the changing schemes are properties, which make the treatment of that enormous quantity of information highly sophisticated.

In a cooperation with the Department of Databases and Information Systems (DBIS), Institute of Computer Science at the University of Innsbruck and the Division of Genetic Epidemiology at the Innsbruck Medical University, the aim of the project is to design a database for administration of phenotypes and genotypes. In addition to the storage of information in respect of diseases, demographical data, laboratory parameters, the attention should be drawn on SNP-analysis.
A Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) is a DNA sequence variation, within a single nucleotide differs in two sequences. As a result of this analysis, thousands up to one million SNPs per patient are possible. Scalability of the database and an export-interface to statistic programs are some other important requirements. With this database - in short GenDB - it will be possible to manage this huge amount of data, to save time and link genotypes to possible diseases.