Conference summary and conclusions

Abstract

The importance of this conference is immediately indicated by the prestige of its sponsors: the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology; the National Science Foundation; and the National Institutes of Health. Although there have been many conferences and publications on the use of computers in the Life Sciences, most notably the series of volumes on Computers in Biomedical Research (1), this is the first time that a conference has been undertaken which spans all aspects of the field from basic science through clinical medicine, with considerable attention to the costs of using computers, and with viewpoints ranging through those of life scientists, industry, scientific administrators, and the Congress. For the first time, a set of papers has been collected of sufficient breadth on which to begin to base a national policy regarding the use of computers in life science research.