Obtaining biological information and storing and searching biological information in a database

摘要

A system for obtaining biological information relating to a biological sample (e.g. cell, tissue); the system comprises: a control unit, a phenotype data (e.g. image data) acquisition unit; and a biological sequence data (e.g. DNA, RNA) acquisition unit. The control unit is configured to control the phenotype data acquisition unit to obtain phenotype data representing a phenotype characteristic of the biological sample, to control the biological sequence data acquisition unit to obtain biological sequence data representing a biological sequence characteristic of the biological sample; and to convey an indication of the phenotype data and the biological sequence data to a storage unit for storing with an indication the phenotype data and the biological sequence data are associated with the same biological sample. Other embodiments provide for the generation of a database of biological information comprising phenotype data which is not amenable to searching stored in association with (i.e. in effect tagged or linked with) biological sequence data which is more amenable to searching.