A comprehensive database of Algal biological data.

There is significant interest worldwide on ‘algal products’, with news about investments and research programmes, emerging on an almost daily basis. In recent years, microalgae have garnered interest for producing valuable molecules with high commercial importance in the food industry and aquaculture as a natural source of high-value products such as carotenoids, polysaccharides, fatty acids, steroids and algal toxins, ranging from therapeutic proteins to biofuels. The ability of microalgae to survive or proliferate over a wide range of environmental conditions is, to a large extent, reflected in the tremendous biodiversity. The research put some effort to increase the knowledge in algal systems, for their capacity to fine tuning metabolism efficiently in response to changes in environmental conditions. Along with this effort there is an imperative need to integrate large scale data sets from high throughput experimental techniques using computational methods and database resources to provide comprehensive information about the molecular data. Only few databases are present so far, however, no single database exists that provides the necessary information on algal's metabolite already characterised. To accelerate the development of algal product production, we have developed a custom-design database, Microalgae Database (MIDA). That could become an important tool in assisting scientists. The data are being collected from scientific experiments, published literature, high throughput experiment technology and computational analyses. The customized search engine and the data structure of this database will enable to extract exhaustive informations, joining different kinds of data, and develop various statistics.