A biocryptoanarchy link to Adleman's DNA work? 6-8-96. FiTi: "Bioinformatics: the jobs of the future." One of the biggest manpower shortages today is in bioinformatics, the area in which biology meets computer science. Biology is becoming a data-intensive science, in the same way that physics did almost 50 years ago when it became clear that computers would be needed not only to store information but also to process it. There's a great shortage of people, partly because a lot of organisations are simultaneously seeing the need for bioinformatics and partly because the skills required are changing so fast: + Search and analysis, including new mathematical techniques for finding patterns in data; + Knowledge management, including ways to integrate information from different databases; + Mapping and genomics, including approaches to identifying the genetic components of complex traits; + Sequence/structure/function including rapid methods to predict the biological function of a gene from its DNA. The mainstream computer and information technology companies are only just beginning to take an interest in bioinformatics. "There's a huge vacuum there." For an undergraduate scientist searching for a field in which to specialise, there are no better job prospects than bioinformatics or - cheminformatics. BIO_nfo