At the Sequence Analysis Consulting Services of UCSF, providing sequence databases and software to over 100 labs including over 1200 people at UCSF, we have the unique advantage of hearing software development priorities directly from the researchers. One area many scientists feel requires much improvement is user interface. Many bioinformatics programs have yet to take advantage of advances made in area such as the WWW, Python, Java and the CGI. Two major areas lacking in user-interface ease are homology modeling and sequence alignment editing, which crosses the boundary between molecular biologists and structural and computational biochemists. Software tools for sequence alignments and structure homology modeling must evolve with the new data such as EST and technologies such as the WWW. We have designed programs that take advantage of these new technologies to enable the informaticist/scientist to have a more user-friendly and efficient working environment. We are designing a Perl and Python application for molecular biologists interested in structure to make UNIX sequence analysis and homology modeling tools as easy as browsing the Web. The Computer Graphics Lab and its resources offer a unique context for this interdisciplinary work.
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