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10 CULTURE AND RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE
Earlier chapters of this report have focused on what might be achieved experimentally and on the
scientific and technical hurdles that must be overcome at the interface of biology and computing. This
chapter focuses on the infrastructural underpinnings needed to support research at this interface. Note
that because the influence of computing on biology has been much more significant than the influence
of biology on computing, the discussion in this chapter is focused mostly on the former.
10.1 Setting the Context,
In 1991, Walter Gilbert sketched a vision of 21st century biology (described in Chapter 1) and noted
the changes in intellectual orientation and culture that would be needed to realize that vision. He wrote:
To use [the coming] flood of [biological] knowledge [i.e., sequence information], which will pour across the
computer networks of the world, biologists not only must become computer-literate, but also change their
approach to the problem of understanding life.... The next tenfold increase in the amount of information in
the databases will divide the world into haves and have-nots, unless each of us connects to that information
and learns how to sift through it for the parts we need. This is not more difficult than knowing how to
access the scientific literature as it is at present, for even that skill involves more than a traditional reading of
the printed page, but today involves a search by computer.... We must hook our individual computers into
the worldwide network that gives us access to daily changes in the database and also makes immediate our
communications with each other. The programs that display and analyze the material for us must be
improved—and we [italics added] must learn how to use them more effectively.^1In short, Gilbert pointed out the need for institutional change (in the sense of individual life scien-
tists learning to cooperate with each other) and for biologists to learn how to use the new tools of
information technology.
Because the BioComp interface encompasses a variety of intellectual paradigms and disparate
institutions, Section 10.2 describes the organizational and institutional infrastructure supporting work
at this interface, illustrating a variety of programs and training approaches. Section 10.3 addresses some
(^1) W. Gilbert, “Toward a Paradigm Shift in Biology,” Nature 349(6305):99, 1991.