BioAfrica - Website Report 2005

BioAfrica website Report 2005:

By Tulio de Oliveira and Sharon Cassol*, the main developers of the BioAfrica website, now affiliated with the Evolutionary Group in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, UK, and the *HIV-1 Immunopathogenesis and Therapeutics Program at University of Pretoria, South Africa.

BioAfrica was created as the official website of Prof. Sharon Cassol’s South African research program funded by the Wellcome Trust (grant #061238). In addition, to hosting information on HIV genetic analysis, the website distributes HIV-1 specific bioinformatics tools (HIV blast, GDE for Linux) developed as part of the initial Wellcome-funded project. Since its origin, BioAfrica has grown significantly, and today is one of the most accessed websites in the field of HIV bioinformatics.

The BioAfrica website was developed by Tulio de Oliveira as part of his PhD thesis in the Prof. Cassol laboratory. Tulio graduated in 2004 and, in 2005, was awarded an EU Postdoctoral Fellowship to continue his studies with the Evolution Biology Group at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford. Also in 2005, Dr. Cassol moved her research program to the University of Pretoria.

Despite these changes, Drs. de Oliveira and Cassol have decided to maintain their research partnership, including continued development of the BioAfrica website. As a result, the website will retain its original objectives (as Dr. Cassol’s official website in Pretoria) and continue to be developed by its original authors.

As part of this new phase of development, an HIV-1 automated subtyping tool has been constructed in collaboration with the Evolutionary Group at University of Oxford, UK., the HIV-1 Immunopathogenesis and Therapeutics Program at University of Pretoria, South Africa, and the REGA institute at the Leuven Catolic University, Belgium.

The BioAfrica web site is maintained by: Dr. Tulio de Oliveira,