Sequencing Software and the Shift in the Practice of Computation

Abstract

Sanger decided to systematically employ computers in the laboratory during the mid-1970s, when his group was applying the plus and minus method to the DNA of the bacteriophage virus ØX-174. This decision may now seem unproblematic, given the size of the molecule: with over 5000 nucleotides, it was considerably larger than those sequenced previously. However, when placed within the broader scope of the interactions between biology and computing, and their application to biological sequences in particular, one may wonder why Sanger had not incorporated computers earlier. Computers had been widely used at the Cavendish Laboratory in the 1950s and then at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), to which Sanger migrated in 1962. Beyond Cambridge, computer programs were designed to assist in protein sequence determination during the 1960s and a considerable number of researchers in Sanger’s group continued working on proteins after their move to the LMB.