What? Why? How?

What does our database do?

An easy access platform with a database of various host organisms and tools to work with them.

Why?

For a considerable amount of time, it has been known that Escherichia coli is not the omnipotent synthetic biology model organism that it is made out to be. With many context failures and departures from the desired expression once out of the lab, it has become frustrating to work with specialized functions in model organisms.

When a model organism fails to optimally express a gene isolated from another organism, the next proposed step could be to either try to clone it into another organism or work with the native yet uncharacterized organism. But, working with an uncharacterized organism can have multiple natural hindrances like growth and maintenance conditions. A larger roadblock can be obtaining the protocols, parts, vectors, and even simple things like optimal growth and maintenance conditions.

Our team faced many of the problems mentioned above while we tried to work with the halo-extremophile, Haloferax volcanii. Hence, we decided to come up with a database that would help ease the transition to working with an organism less worked with.

How does the database work?

The landing page of the database has a drop-down menu and a search bar where the user entered/selected organism is matched with the list of organisms present in the database. This then takes the user to a different page consisting of all important attributes of the organism. At this page, there is an option present to either navigate through all the attributes by scrolling down or by selecting a specific attribute in the list present on the left-hand side. There is also an option to add a new organism and all details pertaining to it by filling a form that feeds the entered data to the database. The organism is now a new addition to the database and is visible in the drop-down menu.