Bioinformatics play a key role in the progress of molecular biology and genome research. In fact, the ongoing transition of molecular and cellular biology into an industrial-style, large scale science with significant medical and thus economic impact would be inconceivable without bioinformatics. In many particular questions, existing techniques from mathematics and computer science have not been sufficient to support life science research. Bioinformatics, as a result, is not only bringing existing methods to bear on the new problems but also developing, or catalyzing the development of novel techniques in these formal sciences. With its increased importance, the fostering of bioinformatics has become a crucial part of German efforts to promote biotechnology and the life sciences in general. The difficulties, however, lie in the strongly interdisciplinary nature of the field as well as in getting computational methods accepted by laboratory biologists and medical researchers.
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