The EBI organised an international conference on "Datamining in Bioinformatics - towards in-silico Biology". The conference concluded that data comparability and the need for novel algorithms are key issues for this growing field.

The speedup in the various genome projects was well reflected in this year's  symposium that was held on 1-2 June on the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus. This event, organised by the European Bioinformatics Institute, grew out from earlier held workshops for its Industry Associates. Within one year, gene prediction and annotation has shifted from primarily DNA based to genome based, with refined methodologies and genome comparisons now part of (semi-)automatic genome annotation pipelines.

This article answers a common question from users discovering the EBI EuroGeneIndexes (EGI). It explains in-depth the philosophy behind the development and deployment (using CORBA) of the EGI.

A lot has happened over the last couple of months. This newsflash brings one up-to-date with the current developments in JNET, JPRED2, 3Dee, and ProtEST.

The EBI Macromolecular Structure Database is the European project for the collection, management and distribution of data about the three dimensional structure of macromolecules. The goals of the EBI-MSD are to provide high quality services for the deposition, organisation, integration and search of data about three dimensional structures. Work is in progress in all three areas and some highlights are summarised this article.

In 1996, the European Bioinformatics Institute launched a programme of support for industry in the field of bioinformatics. The aim of this programme is to help the pharmaceutical and biotech industries to benefit from the latest innovations in the fast-growing field of bioinformatics by providing training, plus pre-competitive research and development. The article reflects the current status of the project and the main activities at the moment.

Professional backgrounds of new staff that have arrived during the last couple of months to take up duty at EBI.