Frequently Asked Questions

We're using a modified version of NCBI BLAST 2.2.15 (XML output). It has been modified to run in a cluster environment.

For publications that have used CAMERA for research, please use the following reference citation:

Seshadri R, Kravitz SA, Smarr L, Gilna P, Frazier M (2007) CAMERA: A Community Resource for Metagenomics. PLoS Biol 5(3): e75 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050075

The CAMERA project establishes a data repository that provides efficient mechanisms for making metagenomic data available to the research community in a manner that respects the rights granted to countries under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, http://www.biodiv.org/default.shtml ). The CBD states that countries have sovereign rights over their own biological resources. By registering to use the CAMERA web site and associated services, you acknowledge that the genetic information available through the website may be considered to be part of the genetic patrimony of the country from which the sample was obtained, and that countries may claim intellectual property rights arising from commercial use of such data. It is your responsibility to familiarize yourself with these conditions. In general, countries place no restrictions on the use of the data available within CAMERA for non-commercial research purposes. To the extent possible, the CAMERA project will provide notice of those countries that impose conditions for commercial use. CAMERA is not in a position to assess the validity of such claims and, therefore, cannot provide comment or unrestricted permission concerning the use, copying, or distribution of the information contained within.

User Agreement

As a condition of my use of the CAMERA website, I acknowledge and agree that the genetic information available through the CAMERA website may be considered to be part of the genetic patrimony of the country from which the sample was obtained. As a user, I agree to: (1) acknowledge the country of origin in any publications where the genetic information is presented; (2) contact the CBD focal point identified on the CBD website (http://www.biodiv.org/doc/info-centre.shtml) if I intend to use the genetic information for commercial purposes.

THE CAMERA PROJECT (AND ITS AFFILIATED INSTITUTIONS - THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO AND THE J. CRAIG VENTER INSTITUTE, INC.) IS NOT LIABLE FOR ANY FAILURE, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, BY THE USER TO COMPLY WITH TERMS OF THIS USER AGREEMENT OR THE RESTRICTIONS IMPOSED BY THE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN. THE CAMERA PROJECT (AND ITS AFFILIATED INSTITUTIONS - THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO AND THE J. CRAIG VENTER INSTITUTE, INC.) DOES NOT WARRANT OR ASSUME ANY LEGAL LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, OR USEFULNESS OF ANY INFORMATION, APPARATUS, PRODUCT, OR PROCESS DISCLOSED.

CAMERA is devoted to serving the needs of scientists studying the complexity of organisms as they function in natural ecosystems, enabling the transition of research studies from organismal genomics to environmental metagenomics. Given that broad spectrum, CAMERA can potentially serve researchers in bioinformatics, ecology, genomics, microbial biology, molecular biology, ocean science, and related disciplines.

The Executive Committee, is comprised of Larry Smarr (PI), Mark Ellisman (Chief Technology Officer, Co-PI), Paul Gilna (Chief Applications Officer), and John Wooley (Chief Science Officer).

They are advised an external Scientific Advisory Board, which represents the broader scientific community.

There are many ways you can get involved. Send us e-mail by clicking the "Contact us" button at the top of the CAMERA home page, send e-mail to CAMERA executive director Paul Gilna, pgilna@ucsd.edu, attend conferences and workshops we sponsor, and contact members of our Science Advisory Board with your thoughts.

The J. Craig Venter Institute's Global Ocean Sampling expedition is an effort to sample marine microbial communities every 200 miles around the globe. See http://camera.calit2.net/about-camera/GOS.php for more detail.

The GOS dataset was the largest environmental dataset generated as of mid-2005. As the data was prepared for publication, it became clear that no repository existed that would support the metadata-based function required for the research community to access and leverage this valuable data resource. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation recognized this need and awarded a grant to build CAMERA. The initial tools and data for CAMERA were driven by the Venter Institute team's experience analyzing the GOS data set, and CAMERA release 1.0 was driven by the publication schedule for the initial set of papers analyzing the GOS dataset. This release also includes data from C-More's Hawaii Ocean Time Series project, as well as SDSU's Marine Virome project. CAMERA intends, in future releases, to include other community datasets as appropriate.

The initial tools and data chosen for the initial release of CAMERA were driven by the Venter Institute team's experience analyzing the GOS data set, and the CAMERA deployment schedule was driven by the publication schedule for the initial set of papers analyzing the GOS dataset. Moving forward, CAMERA's development direction will be guided by direct feedback from the scientific community it serves, and input from CAMERA's Scientific Advisory Board, Steering Committee, and staff.

CAMERA aspires to work with the research community to become the definitive repository for metagenomic data and metadata. Our initial focus has been to host the large dataset produced by the Venter Institute's Global Ocean Survey expedition, but we have also reached out to a small set of researchers to incorporate their data in the initial CAMERA release.

We are developing well defined policies and procedures for submission of data to CAMERA, with associated data and metadata formats and requirements. We hope to have proposals for the submission formats and requirements ready for public review during the first quarter of 2007.
In the meantime, we continue to incorporate metagenomic data from projects we know of and work together with researchers who contact us to incorporate their data into CAMERA. If you are interested in publishing your data in CAMERA, please contact us at camera-info@camera.calit2.net with details of your datasets, including the size and type of data, related publications, and available metadata.

New bioinformatic techniques and tools are being developed daily around the globe. CAMERA is dedicated to providing access to these tools and their output. However, given the current volume of metagenomic data and the complexity of many of the newest tools, it can take months to perform a new analysis. Collaborators interested in making their tools and the analyses generated by their tools available on the CAMERA website should contact camera-info@camera.calit2.net.

Contact our help desk.

Platform	Platform Version Tested	Firefox Version(s)	IE Version(s)
Windows	XP SP2, Windows 7	1.5.terminal, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5.x	6.0 SP2, 7.0
Mac	OS X 10.4, OS X 10.5, OS X 10.6	2.0, 3.0, 3.5.x	None
Linux	Red Hat AS Release 4 Update 3	1.5.terminal, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5.x	None

We believe users of this website will get the best results if they use Firefox as their browser.

For those using the Linux Iceweasel browser, some of our forum users have had success using CAMERA by changing their brower's "User Agent" settings to "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061010 Firefox/2.0". Instructions are available. Proceed at your own risk.