National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
For more information, see the Field Guide to NCBI resources, A Field Guide to GenBank and NCBI Molecular Biology Resources, a lecture and hands-on computer workshop on GenBank and related databases covering effective use of the Entrez databases and search service, the BLAST similarity search engine, genome data and related resources.Entrez
NCBI has many databases. Entrez searches all of them at once.
Note, for example, books.
PubMed
PubMed is the major literature database in the biological sciences. It is free and accessible through a standard web browser. Simple, free style searches work. How your search terms were interpreted is availble by clicking "details." For example, if I enter LXR and insulin into the search box, the search that is executed is "RNPS1[All Fields] AND ("rna splicing"[MeSH Terms] OR ("rna"[All Fields] AND "splicing"[All Fields]) OR "rna splicing"[All Fields] OR "splicing"[All Fields])". That complex query results from the fact that "splicing" is a well-defined search term. From the details box (at right), it is possible to capture a defined URL for later use (for bookmarking, or for incorporation into another web page). You do this by clicking on link labeled "See more ..." and then "URL.". Otherwise, the generic URL http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez appears in the toolbar, no matter what you searched for.
One can register at NCBI and save searches under "My NCBI." I recommend this.
You should also notice the small link labeled "related citations" under each citation. This link takes you to related content ranked by relevance (rather than date).
GenBank is the general term for NCBI's sequence databases.
It is good to know about sequence file formats, especially fasta, about
BLink, and about
Refseq.
OMIM (online Mendelian Inheritance in Man)
OMIM presents information about the genetics of human disease. The site consists of gene-specific and disease-specific pages that are cross-referenced to each other and to the literature. For example, the page for cystic fibrosis (entry 219700) is distinct from the page for the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator, CFTR (entry 602421).
page by Steve Mount, last modified Jan. 27, 2012