New Database Provides Information on Hepatitis C Virus

A new database provides information about the Hepatitis C virus. “Although 150 to 200 million people around the world have HCV, the virus was only proven to exist in 1989. The authors say, ‘The data generated from thousands of experiments are spread across many journal articles, with no standardized reporting format.’ The database was constructed using information manually gathered, and is ‘arranged to reflect the availability of published information including HCV genotype, nucleotide changes, systems used to monitor translation efficiency, activity in translation assays, plasmid constructs and reporter genes used, clinical data and the original publication reference,’ say the researchers.”