Curation and Informatics

ABSTRACT The mission of the Rat Resource and Research Center (RRRC) is to provide biomedical investigators with the rat models, embryonic stem cells, related reagents, protocols, information, support and services that will facilitate their research. The RRRC serves as a unique repository by importing, storing and distributing a large number of rat strains/stocks. It assures that valuable models are preserved and made available to interested investigators, allows researchers to satisfy NIH requirements for resource sharing, relieves individual investigators from the burden of animal distribution and ensures that models are maintained with rigorous genetic quality control and health monitoring to promote experimental rigor and reproducibility. As the outward facing presence of the RRRC to the biomedical community, the RRRC website plays a critical role as does the on-line ordering system. Curation of the data that exists for all RRRC holdings is a major and important task. To facilitate RRRC internal operations, numerous custom data management systems are in place. The proposed RRRC Curation and Informatics Section seeks to build a team of qualified individuals who will be dedicated to overseeing and improving the website, the on-line ordering system, and the internal data management systems as well as providing high quality data curation. Creation of this new component of the RRRC will expand our abilities to provide additional information to users, continually upgrade and improve our website and on-line ordering system and in general, provide an enhanced experience for our users. Importantly, it will allow prioritization of important tasks such as website upgrades and prompt data curation of incoming strains/stocks and allow the RRRC to better explore potential collaborations to share and link data with other Resources. Overall, addition of a Curation and Informatics Section to the RRRC will improve operations and allow the RRRC to be more impactful to the research community.