title: Bioinformatics--principles and potential of a new multidisciplinary tool.
abstract: The materials of bioinformatics are biological data, and its methods are derived from a wide variety of computational techniques. Recent years have seen an explosive growth in biological data, and the development of novel computational methods. These methods have become essential to research progress in structural biology, genomics, structure-based drug design and molecular evolution. The development and maintenance of a robust infrastructure of biological data is of equal importance if biotechnology is to take maximum advantage of research advances in a wide variety of fields. While bioinformatics has already made important contributions, it faces significant challenges as it matures.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Human Genome Research, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892-6050, USA. benton@extra,nchgr.nih.gov
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Benton
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000639:trends; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000639:trends*; D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D016208:Databases, Factual; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D016678:Genome; D006801:Humans; D046911:Macromolecular Substances; D015394:Molecular Structure; D010802:Phylogeny; D012106:Research / Q000639:trends; D012109:Research Support as Topic; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D046911:Macromolecular Substances