The race to computerise biology

FOR centuries, biology has been an empirical field that featured mostly specimens and Petri dishes. Over the past five years, however, computers have changed the discipline--as they have harnessed the data on genetics for the pursuit of cures for disease. Wet lab processes that took weeks to complete are giving way to digital research done in silico. Notebooks with jotted comments, measurements and drawings have yielded to terabyte storehouses of genetic and chemical data. And empirical estimates are being replaced by mathematical exactness.