The automated sequence annotation pipeline (ASAP) is designed to ease routine investigation of new functional annotations on unknown sequences, such as expressed sequence tags (ESTs), through querying of web-accessible resources and maintenance of a local database. The system allows easy use of the output from one search as the input for a new search, as well as the filtering of results. The database is used to store formats and parameters and information for parsing data from web sites. The database permits easy updating of format information should a site modify the format of a query or of a returned web page.