1. TAMBIS Transparent Access to Multiple Biological Information Sources This presentation will take about five minutes

2. Why Tambis? Researchers in biological sciences often gather and compare sequencing and other heterogeneous information This process takes significant manual effort...... and is a constant barrier to progress

3. The World without TAMBIS... There are over 200 biological information sources world-wide These contain a huge amount of data But this data is only useful with sensible access mechanisms BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION

4. The World without TAMBIS... There are three main types of information source: BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION databases on-line services files

5. The World without TAMBIS... The user must phrase the question for each information system BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION SQL for databases appropriate questions to each tool file searches

6. The World without TAMBIS... The user must interpret the answers received from the different sources BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION BIO GIC L IN OR ION And still doesn’t get the complete picture

7. The World without TAMBIS... Too much time is spent BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION leading to under-use of these resources selecting the appropriate sources phrasing the questions interpreting the answers

8. The World with TAMBIS... TAMBIS will solve these problems BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION TAMBIS by acting as a single interface to all these information sources by providing the illusion of a single source

9. The World with TAMBIS... The user will BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION TAMBIS BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION TAMBIS will find the information sources phrase the questions integrate the results report them in a consistent manner ask the question

10. The World with TAMBIS... Through improved access, TAMBIS will lead to more effective use of multiple biological information sources BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION TAMBIS BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION

11. TAMBIS is a collaboration between the departments of Computer Science & Biological Science at the University of Manchester, funded by EPSRC and Zeneca Pharmaceuticals To find out more contact:tambis@cs.man.ac.uk Carole Goble Computer Science, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK Phone: +44 161 275 6195 Fax: +44 161 275 6932 E-mail: carole@cs.man.ac.uk Andy Brass Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK Phone: +44 161 275 5064/5096 Fax: +44 161 275 5082 E-mail: abrass@manchester.ac.uk Norman Paton Computer Science, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK Phone: +44 161 275 6910 Fax: +44 161 275 6932 E-mail: norm@cs.man.ac.uk