Description
Life science Web databases are becoming increasingly essential in conducting everyday biological research. With more than 300 life science Web databases and the growing size of the life science data, searching and managing these complex data requires technology beyond that of traditional database systems. The open research issues include the interoperability of geographically distributed autonomous databases, which are generally only Web-accessible, and the seamless semantic-based integration of these databases with total transparency to the user. In this paper, the implementation of a Biological and Chemical Information Integration System (BACIIS) is presented. BACIIS supports the integration of multiple heterogeneous life science Web databases and allows the execution of global applications that extend beyond the boundaries of individual databases. This paper discusses the architecture of BACIIS. It also discusses the techniques used to extract and integrate data from the various life science Web databases.