title: BioSPICE: access to the most current computational tools for biologists.
abstract: The goal of the BioSPICE program is to create a framework that provides biologists access to the most current computational tools. At the program midpoint, the BioSPICE member community has produced a software system that comprises contributions from approximately 20 participating laboratories integrated under the BioSPICE Dashboard and a methodology for continued software integration. These contributed software modules are the BioSPICE Dashboard, a graphical environment that combines Open Agent Architecture and NetBeans software technologies in a coherent, biologist-friendly user interface. The current Dashboard permits data sources, models, simulation engines, and output displays provided by different investigators and running on different machines to work together across a distributed, heterogeneous network. Among several other features, the Dashboard enables users to create graphical workflows by configuring and connecting available BioSPICE components. Anticipated future enhancements to BioSPICE include a notebook capability that will permit researchers to browse and compile data to support model building, a biological model repository, and tools to support the development, control, and data reduction of wet-lab experiments. In addition to the BioSPICE software products, a project website supports information exchange and community building.
authors.affiliation: SRI International, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
authors.forename: Thomas D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Garvey
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lincoln
authors.forename: Charles John
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Pedersen
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Johnson
mesh_terms: D019295:Computational Biology; D003199:Computer Systems; D020407:Internet; D012984:Software