An overview of the BioExtract Server: a distributed, Web-based system for genomic analysis.

Genome research is becoming increasingly dependent on access to multiple, distributed data sources, and bioinformatic tools. The importance of integration across distributed databases and Web services will continue to grow as the number of requisite resources expands. Use of bioinformatic workflows has seen considerable growth in recent years as scientific research becomes increasingly dependent on the analysis of large sets of data and the use of distributed resources. The BioExtract Server (http://bioextract.org) is a Web-based system designed to aid researchers in the analysis of distributed genomic data by providing a platform to facilitate the creation of bioinformatic workflows. Scientific workflows are created within the system by recording the analytic tasks preformed by researchers. These steps may include querying multiple data sources, saving query results as searchable data extracts, and executing local and Web-accessible analytic tools. The series of recorded tasks can be saved as a computational workflow simply by providing a name and description.