Abstract
As more bioinformatics tools were public on line nowadays, building them into web services and composing them automatically becomes more and more desirable and compelling. In this article, we develop a framework for integrating bioinformatics tools based on Semantic Web technology. Bioinformatics tools in this framework are wrapped as Web Services that are described semantically in terms of ontology. The web services we wrapped are registered in a broker service so that we can dynamically discovers them through matching queries against their semantic descriptions. Specification of abstract workflows is also expressed in Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS). A problem solving agent is responsible for automatic analyzing and discovering the web services in the abstract workflow, and selecting among them in order to optimize some quality of service (QoS). The abstract workflow is then instantiated as a concrete workflow. As more new genome sequences were reported these days, analyzing the functions of a new genome sequence becomes more and more desirable and compelling. However, the determination of the functions of a genomic sequence is not an easy task, and it is also labor-intensive one. The workflow of the genomic analysis of SARS Coronavirus is taken as a test case and is automatically carried out using the service-based framework. The framework automates the efficient analysis of genomic sequences and enhances the interoperability and workflow optimization.