Fusing computing and biology expertise, bioinformatics software provides a powerful tool for organizing and mining the vast amounts of data genetics researchers are accumulating.

Biology has increasingly become a data driven science. The emergence of highthroughputdata acquisition technologies for investigating biological phenomena has been an important factor in this process. For example, the recent completion of the human, rice, and flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana genome maps signifies a major milestone in data acquisition.

The development of novel algorithms and databases to catalog, organize, harness, and mine theincreasing amount of data such research efforts generate has also been important. The potential for scientists to infer significant biological knowledge computationally from a desktop is both appealing and real. In this issue, we gather perspectives, articles,and reports to showcase the emergence of bioinformatics software as a discipline in its own right. The "Molecular Biology for Computer Scientists" sidebar provides some pertinent background information.