One day, gene expression data will be seamlessly coupled with data on protein expression, post-translational modification and activity. Systems approaches will allow us a comprehensive view of complex genetic and metabolic networks, with a complete understanding of the interplay between transcriptional, translational and post-translational mechanisms of genomic regulation. We will be predicting protein structure (and even function) from sequence information, perhaps even for multidomained/multifunctional proteins. We will have a universal vocabulary throughout biology, allowing rapid interchange of and cross talk between different types of data. But in the meantime, we have some work to do.

This month, we inaugurate a section on computational biology. The aim of the section is to present the wider biological community with advances taking place in computational analysis that will shape future research. In each issue, the section will present reviews by leading experts, step-by-step guides to online resources and statistical tools, comparisons of selected online tools or software packages, and discussions of community initiatives and computational concepts. We do not intend to publish original papers on new databases; authors of such papers are directed to the relevant issue of Nucleic Acids Research, which appears every January.

The use of computational techniques and mathematics in biology is nothing new; in fact, J.B.S. Haldane was working on mathematical demonstrations of evolutionary theory as far back as the early 1930s. But modeling and systems approaches are the most exciting and unifying theme in science today, promising to make biology more predictive and quantitative than ever before. We hope that the new section will help our readers along this journey.