The SWISS-PROT protein sequence database: Its relevance to human molecular medical research

Molecular databases are the main source of information for computational biology, but they also contain data that are extremely valuable for molecular medicine. Swiss-Prot, undoubtedly the best-annotated protein sequence database, is a prime example. It can be accessed at hundreds of sites via the world-wide web and a measure of its popularity is that its server at the Geneva site alone is accessed more than 50,000 times daily. In the following article, Amos Bairoch, director of Swiss-Prot in Geneva, and Rolf Appweiler, the Head of a Swiss-Prot group at the European Bioinformatics Institute, describe features of the database that are of particular interest to practioners of molecular medicine.