The Origin and Early Reception of Sequence Databases

Abstract

Emerging areas of scientific research never arise in a social or intellectual vacuum, but must establish themselves in relation to well-established disciplines. This necessity poses challenges for scientists who must not only create a new disciplinary identity, but must also defend their research from criticism and even condescension from other scientists. The early use of sequence databases provides an excellent case study for examining the challenges facing novel sciences. The need for sequence databases grew out of protein sequencing in biochemistry beginning in the late 1950s. The rapid increase in the number of sequences made databases an attractive resource, but protein biochemists often considered building, managing, and doing research with databases a “second-rate” science. Similarly, computational biologists who used databases and digital computers to study evolutionary phenomena faced criticism from more traditional evolutionary biologists. In retrospect, one can see this early computational biology as laying important foundations for the bioinformatics, molecular evolution, and molecular systematics of today. However, within the context of the 1960s, establishing a scientific identity posed serious challenges for Margaret Dayhoff, Walter Fitch, and Russell Doolittle and other computational biologists who used computers and databases to investigate evolutionary problems.