Bioinformatics is emerging as a field with ever-increasing promise, ur gency, and necessity. All three of these facets can be seen in the con text of the recent sequencing of the human genome. The creation of a novel algorithm for the assembly of whole genome shotgun data sets accelerated the project and resulted in its near completion in 2001. The urgency became apparent with the landslide of data that ensued and the realization that current databases and tool sets are not up to the task. Finally, the necessity of bioinformatics as a facet of molecular biologi cal research becomes evident in...