Worm Strains Catalogue on R@CMon

Associate Professor Roger Pocock is the head of theĀ NeuronalĀ Development and Plasticity Laboratory at Monash University. Roger’s lab investigates the various fundamental mechanisms that factors in brain development using the Caenorhabditis elegans organism as a model system. Roger joined Monash University in 2014, bringing with him a comprehensive catalogue of worm strains data that has been carefully curated for years from his previous laboratory at the University of Copenhagen. The strains catalogue is held in a FileMaker database, that the laboratory members regularly update and query for current and new strains’ entries.

C. elegans as a model system, Neuronal Development and Plasticity Laboratory

FileMaker (and its derivatives)Ā is commercial software for creating custom applications for a variety target platforms (e.g. web, iPad, Windows, Mac). The worm strains catalogue from Roger’s lab was the first FileMaker-based database deployment on R@CMon. The R@CMon team were able to install and configure a fully-licensed and latest version of FileMaker Pro on the Monash node of the NeCTAR Research CloudĀ inside a dedicated tenancy (i.e. computational and storage resources) provisioned for the lab. The FileMaker software itself has been deployed on a Monash-licensed Windows Server instance, which has access to the latest system and security updates from Microsoft.

Worm Strains Catalogue Entry

The FileMaker WebDirectĀ feature has been enabled on the new server to allow easy access to the strains catalogue from standard web browsers via internet, without any need for additional programming or software installation on the user’s client machine. Proper HTTPS have been prepared and enabled on new the WebDirect interface.Ā Since then, and with the ongoing support of R@CMon, the catalogue has grown to includeĀ  external collaborators’ models that are derived from other strains.

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