Programmed for success

摘要

Feel that you're missing out on genomics? Even if you don't think of yourself as 'bioinformatics-enabled', your desktop PC, coupled to the Internet with its ever-expanding bioinformatics resources, will let you tap in to the data deluge. All you need to join the bioinformatics revolution is software that doesn't require you to have a deep working knowledge of bioinformatics and genetics in order to get results. But is it out there? According to software companies and service providers, the answer is a resounding 'yes'. Finding genes lurking in raw sequence data, determining the proteins that they encode, and managing the flow of data has powered a large bioinformatics industry. Indeed, the software and services offered by big companies such as LION Bioscience in Heidelberg, Germany, coupled with specialist hardware solutions from IBM, Microsoft and Sun, have been indispensable in handling the flow of data coming out of genome-sequencing projects. But it is not just a problem of scale. As well as transforming biological knowledge, the rapid emergence of such a volume of raw data is also changing the way in which researchers frame the questions that shape research projects and the design of experiments.