February 15, 2007 (Vol. 27, No. 4)
URL:
http://www.hiv.lanl.gov/content/immunology/index.html
Rating:
Strong Points: Lots of info
Weak Points: Limited search functions
Summary:
Like the NIH, the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) hosts numerous useful sites that have few peers. With data extracted from HIV immunology literature, the HIV Molecular Immunology Database provides links to related LANL databases covering sequences, resistance, and vaccine trials. Access to information is on the nerdy side of the spectrum. A section entitled Search Help runs on and on. The primary access appears to be a single text box for searching with no options for restricting or specifying search parameters. On the plus side, I was able to enter common words, like “map”, and get back a set of links to useful maps. The inability of users to restrict searches is an unfortunate omission that I hope will get corrected in a future version. Meanwhile, there is a lot of info here, so the site is worth checking out.