Genomic and Proteomic Databases and Applications: A Challenge for Database Technology

The biological science studies the phenomenon of life and encompasses an enormous variety of information. This wealth of information that has been generated, classified, and stored for centuries has only recently become a major application of database technology. The first genome of RNA bacteriophage MS2, was sequenced in 1976, in a truly heroic feat of direct determination of an RNA sequence (Fiers et al. 1976). But it was not until August of 1995 that the complete genome sequence of the parasitic bacterium haemophilius influenza, ushered the era of real genomics, the study of complete genomes of cellular organisms (Fleishman et al. 1995).