[Biojava-l] OMG Life Sciences Research Task Force seeks your guidance

[W_David_Benton@sbphrd.com]

We apologize to those who receive multiple copies of this email.
Please distribute this announcement to all interested parties.

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The Object Management Group has issued a new Request for Information
(RFI) in the life sciences research area.  Authored by the Life Sciences
Research (LSR) Domain Task Force (DTF), the new RFI is a general
request.  We want to know what to focus on next.

The RFI can be found at

  http://doc.omg.org/lifesci/2001-04-15

RFI submissions are due by 20 August 2001.

The primary reason for issuing a new RFI is to take advantage of the
OMG's new Model Driven Architecture (MDA).  By leveraging its modeling
specifications, such as UML, the OMG has significantly broadened its
architectural approach.  New technology submissions will be required to
have a middleware-independent model, with one or more corresponding
models for specific middleware platforms such as CORBA, Enterprise Java
Beans, XML, or SOAP.  For more information about MDA see
http://www.omg.org/mda.  Two revised submission efforts (Gene
Expression and Chemical Structures) are already using the MDA approach
and will include XML-based solutions.

The RFI also highlights the technology adoptions from LSR,

  * Biomolecular Sequence Analysis
  * Genomic Maps
  * Bibliographic Query Service
  * Macromolecular Structure

and the RFPs underway

  * Chemical Structure Access & Representation
  * Gene Expression
  * Laboratory Equipment Control Interface Specification
  * Biomolecular Sequence Analysis Entities

Please contact any of the LSR co-chairs if you have questions about the
RFI or the LSR DTF.

  * David Benton (W_David_Benton@gsk.com)
  * Karl Konnerth (konnerth@incyte.com)
  * Scott Markel (smarkel@netgenics.com)

You can also find out more about the LSR at

  http://lsr.omg.org/