Mathematical and statistical aspects of DNA and protein sequence analysis - Preface

The technological revolution in molecular biology over the past 10-15 years has opened vast new horizons for exploration. It has also dramatically increased the amount of information available on organisms at the molecular level. The interpretation of this new information, and its management and the design of the experiments which lead to it, has in turn raised challenging problems. Often, mathematical and statistical ideas have been indispensible to progress. As the papers in this volume show, the interaction is not confined to one particular area of the mathematical sciences. In some settings, existing results have been ideally suited to the biological problem. In others, progress has itself stimulated important mathematical advances.