The research group Bioinformatics and Information Technology focuses on the development, installation and provision of bioinformatic tools and the implementation of biological databases to support in silico analysis of various IPK research groups.
Primary tasks are the effective support to store genomic data within specific databases (e.g. CR-EST), to offer selected tools for data analysis with information retrieval as the final goal, the evaluation of currently available bioinformatic tools and consulting concerning topics like data storage and use of the analysis tools.
An additional interest is the data integration. Goal of these activities is the consolidation of the worldwide distributed data including the minimisation of redundancy and the provision of user-specific views onto the integrated data set.

The tasks of the group also include the operation of the central IT services, like network, central file server, archiving and backup. In this context, the group provides a file server cluster for the central storage of user files. Furthermore, the group operates an Active Directory service for the homogeneous management of user data. Parts of the PCs of the institute have been successfully integrated into the provided Windows domain. Thus, a homogeneous, central and resource saving management of files and printers can be established.
The technical basis for the external presentation of information, resources and scientific results of the IPK using an Internet portal is also managed by the IT group. To support internal communication, management and information exchange, a collaboration suite has been integrated into the Intranet portal.
Beside these central services, the individual desktop support of scientific and non-scientific IT users is an
important and challenging task for the IT resource planning.