The Distributed Sequence Annotation System (DAS) is an open source protocol and tool set for exchanging annotations on genomic sequences. It allows a single machine to gather information from multiple, geographically separated annotation databases, collate the information, and display it to the user in a single integrated view.

The current protocol, DAS/1, is widely deployed at sites like Ensembl, TIGR, UCSC, WormBase and FlyBase. The future version, DAS/2, is more flexible, incorporating cutting-edge technologies such as SOAP and WSDL.

Lincoln Stein will give an overview of the project, demonstrate the DAS/1 tools, and show how DAS works behind the scenes. He'll conclude with a discussion of the future of DAS and related systems for sharing and integrating biological information.