GeneCards™ 2002:: towards a complete, object-oriented, human gene compendium

Motivation: In the post-genomic era, functional analysis of genes requires a sophisticated interdisciplinary arsenal. Comprehensive resources are challenged to provide consistently improving, state-of-the-art tools. Results: GeneCards (Rebhan et al., 1998) has made innovative strides: (a) regular updates and enhancements incorporating new genes enriched with sequences, genomic locations, cDNA assemblies, orthologies, medical information, 3D protein structures, gene expression, and focused SNP summaries; (b) restructured software using object-oriented Perl, migration to schema-driven XML, and (c) pilot studies, introducing methods to produce cards for novel and predicted genes.