ABSTRACT
Throughout society the increasing sophistication of electronic mechanisms to store, manipulate and communicate information has transformed the way we work. In particular, the opportunities and pitfalls for science opened up by information technology are profound. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in molecular biology. The information of life-DNA coding for complex proteins involved in intricate biological processes-has become accessible during the last three decades of the 20th century; fortuitously an era when computer hardware and methodology has seen a comparable revolution.
