As genetic mapping of species proceeds at a near explosive pace, new tools are being offered to manage this genetic data. Redasoft Software of Toronto recently released Visual Cloning 2000 (VC2000), a Windows-based program for genetic map creation and DNA sequence analysis. The program provides what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) graphics and tight integration with Internet databases.

Redasoft's earlier program, Plasmid, was the first genetic mapping program with close integration to the Internet. According to sources at Redasoft, VC2000 provides another first for the genomics community: It downloads genetic information from NCBI, GenBank, SRS, and other databases and creates a map in a single step. The company is not aware of any other program that will do this.

Maps created with VC2000 may be linear or circular and with or without sequences. The program automatically positions regions and marker labels without overlap, and the resulting maps may be copied, modified, and scaled up...

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