BIOINFORMATICS - FROM GENOME DATA TO BIOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE

Recently, molecular biologists have sequenced about a dozen bacterial genomes and the first eukaryotic genome. We can now obtain answers to detailed questions about the complete set of genes of an organism. Bio informatics methods are increasingly used for attaching biological kno wledge to long lists of genes, assigning genes to biological pathways, comparing the gene sets of different species, identifying specificity factors, and describing sets of highly conserved proteins common to a ll domains of life. Substantial progress has recently been made in the availability of primary and added-value databases, in the development of algorithms and of network information services for genome analysis . The pharmaceutical industry has greatly benefited from the accumulat ion of sequence data through the identification of targets and candida tes for the development of drugs, vaccines, diagnostic markers and the rapeutic proteins. (C) Current Biology Ltd ISSN 0958-1669.