Early bioinformatics: the birth of a discipline--a personal view.
BACKGROUND
The field of bioinformatics has experienced an explosive growth in the last decade, yet this 'new' field has a long history. Some historical perspectives have been previously provided by the founders of this field. Here, we take the opportunity to review the early stages and follow developments of this discipline from a personal perspective.


RESULTS
We review the early days of algorithmic questions and answers in biology, the theoretical foundations of bioinformatics, the development of algorithms and database resources and finally provide a realistic picture of what the field looked like from a resources and finally provide a realistic picture of what the field looked like from a practitioner's viewpoint 10 years ago, with a perspective for future developments.
Ouzounis
Christos A
CA
Computational Genomics Group, The European Bioinformatics Institute, EMBL Cambridge Outstation, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK. ouzounis@ebi.ac.uk
Valencia
Alfonso
A
D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000266:history / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends*; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D017421:Sequence Analysis / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends*