BGEM Website Construction

The http://www.StJudeBGEM.org website is a web based application to display darkfield images of mouse brain analyzed at different developmental stages using in situ hybridization. The website features gene lists, extensive search capabilities and viewing the images at different resolutions. The application is built with freely available technologies: Apache Web Server, PHP Scripting Language and MySQL Database Engine.

Systems and Methods
The public stjudebgem.org application runs on an Apache2.0.47 web server ( http://www.apache.org ) and was developed using PHP4.3.9 ( http://www.php.net <http://www.php.net/> ) and javascript scripting languages. The database server used was MySQL4.0 ( http://www.mysql.com <http://www.mysql.com/> ).

Internally in the lab, we used the FileMakerPro (Filemaker, Inc. Santa Clara, CA) desktop database to feed in data about the genes processed by in situ hybridization. Additionally, the identification of the tissue block number and slide number and image processing information is maintained using the FileMakerPro database. MySQL is used as the database server for the BGEM public website.

Database Structure and Implementation
A relational database model was designed to hold the image and gene data. The database was normalized to 3rd Normal form. Php scripts were written to synchronize the data between the FileMakerPro  and  the  MySQL databases.