XML Data Management: Native XML and XML-Enabled Database Systems

10.1. Introduction

With the publication of the seminal paper by Watson and Crick that proposed the DNA double helix in 1953, a course was set for the eventual explosion of scientific data related to DNA research. As we entered the twenty-first century, the Human Genome Project revolutionized the field of biology and created a need for efficient ways to manage enormous quantities of information stemming from gene research. New high-throughput sequencing technology now allows researchers to read genetic code at prodigious rates, generating vast amounts of new data. The requirement to manage the abundance of information from the Human Genome Project spawned the new field of bioinformatics. The following are a few of the key events in biology since ...