The seminar was a sequel to the first Dagstuhl Seminar on Molecular Bioinformatics which took place from Sep 7 to Sep 11, 1992 and brought together computer scientists and applied mathematicians with biochemists and molecular biologists in order to discuss possibilities of cooperation in the field of computer-aided design of biomolecular sequences and structures. Since that time, several developments have taken place in Germany and internationally. In Germany, BMBF (the Science Ministry) has funded a program on Molecular Bioinformatics. Within this program, eight large interdisciplinary projects are working on topics such as protein structure prediction, biomolecular docking, genomic databases, and RNA secondary and tertiary structure prediction. Internationally, efforts in computer science applications in molecular biology have increased significantly. Countries such as U. S. and Japan witness lively activity in these fields, albeit somewhat more concentrated on the genome itself than on genomic products such as proteins. Interaction between computer scientists and molecular biologists is intensifying, and a growing number of results are obtained with involvement of computer scientists. The topic of the seminar included research on both the genome and its products, with somewhat of a emphasis on genomic products and on the relationship between those two kinds of research than on the genome itself. As the previous seminar, this seminar concentrated on algorithmic issues and touch issues such as data handling technology, computer graphics etc. only insofar as they relate to algorithmic issues. In addition to the presentations, there was an evening tutorial on protein structures, a round of discussion on traditional and network-based teaching forms for bioinformatics, and a software demonstration. The general feelings of the participants were that after the ground-breaking character of the first seminar, this seminar was marked by an increased understanding and depth of communication between the CS and the molecular biology side. It was clearly evident that the two communities came to understand each other and began to develop a common feeling of identity.
The facilities and procedures at Dagstuhl as well as the unique concept of the Dagstuhl seminars were praised by many participants. The participants expressed the hope that this seminar be succeeded with another seminar on bioinformatics in due time. While a few of the participants expressed the wish to have future workshops more strongly focussed, say, just on alignment of sequences and structures, the majority of the participants welcomed the broadness of the workshop and felt that this width of scope should be maintained of some more time.