ArrayTrack: a free FDA bioinformatics tool to support emerging biomedical research -- an update

Microarray technology has been widely used in diverse fields, including pharmacology, toxicology and clinical medicine [1-5]. An integrated bioinformatics infrastructure to facilitate data management and analysis is vital fully to realise the potential impacts of genomics on research and public health. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has developed the genomics tool, ArrayTrack？, which has a rich set of functionalities to manage, analyse and interpret genomic data, with a focus on microarray data [6,7]. Most functionality is applicable to biomarker development in biomedical research and personalised medicine using other molecular technologies.ArrayTrack became the FDA's genomics tool to support the Voluntary Genomics Data Submission (VGDS) programme [8] in early 2004. VGDS provides a novel mechanism outside normal regulatory interactions for sponsors and the FDA to develop expertise, tools and processes appropriate for regulatory interpretation of pharmacogenomics data. In addition to its broad use within the FDA in various research and regulation-related programmes, ArrayTrack is also freely available to the scientific community. Users can gain access to ArrayTrack either through the website (http://www.fda.gov/ArrayTrack webcite) or by requesting media for local installation. The ArrayTrack user base has grown steadily, and the tool has been adopted by several government agencies (eg the Environmental Protection Agency, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health), academic institutions and private companies. Figure 1 presents an overview of the user base growth trend since 2004.Over the years, ArrayTrack has been presented and reviewed in several publications [6,7,9-12]. This update will, following a brief overview of its key functionalities, focus on its most recent extensions. The user manual and tutorials are available from the ArrayTrack website (http://www.fda.gov/ArrayTrack webcite). At the time of this writing, ArrayT