Though a relatively young discipline, bioinformatics is fi nding increasing importance in many life science disciplines, including biology, biochemistry, medicine, and chemistry. Since its beginnings in the late 1980s, the success of bioinformatics has been associated with rapid developments in computer science, not least in the relevant hardware and software. In addition, biotechnological advances such as those witnessed in the fi elds of genome sequencing, microarrays and proteomics have contributed enormously to the bioinformatics boom. Finally, the simultaneous breakthrough and success of the World-Wide Web has facilitated the worldwide distribution of and easy access to bioinformatics tools. Today, bioinformatics techniques such as the BLAST algorithm, pairwise and multiple sequence comparisons, queries of biological databases, and phylogenetic analyses have become familiar tools to the natural scientist. Many of the software products that were initially unintuitive and cryptic have matured into relatively simple and user-friendly products being easily accessible over the Internet. One no longer needs to be a computer scientist to profi ciently operate bioinformatics tools with respect to complex scientifi c questions. Nevertheless, what remains important is an understanding of fundamental biological principles together with a knowledge of the appropriate bioinformatics tools available and how to access them. Also, and not least, is the confi dence to apply these tools correctly to generate meaningful results.