The Biofilm Resource and Information Database (BRaID)” project is a collaboration between the School of Computing, DePaul University, Chicago, Center for Biofilm Engineering (CBE), Gianforte School of Computing at Montana State University, Bozeman, MT and the National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR), Santa Fe, NM. Biofilms are microbial communities important to water, food, energy, and health, and BRaID serves as a community resource containing metadata about where or how the data was collected, processed, and interpreted. Some examples include, geographical location such as Bozeman Water Reclamation Facility; microenvironments such as water chemistry; parameters such as changes in temperature, perturbations such as adding corrosion inhibitors; and interventions such as antibiotic treatments. BRaID has broad stakeholder appeal and is expected to enhance the competitiveness of US industry, basic research, and defense, as well as assist with advancements in human health, environmental health, and energy. Outreach activities will include (1) dissemination of research outcomes to local community members and industry stakeholders at conferences and legislator engagements; (2) involvement of underrepresented Native American students from high schools and tribal colleges in summer research activities as well as undergraduate researchers at MSU-Bozeman; and (3) educational activities in undergraduate and graduate courses at DePaul University, MSU-Bozeman, as well as summer internship, outreach and training activities at the NCGR.

National Science Foundation (NSF), DBI - ADVANCES IN BIOINFORMATICS

Thiru Ramaraj
Principal Investigator