Retrieval and analysis of electronic information are essential in today’s research environment. This course explores the theory and practice of biological database searching and analysis. In particular, students are introduced to integrated systems where a variety of data sources are connected through worldwide web access. Information retrieval as well as interpretation are discussed and many practical examples in a computer laboratory setting enable students to improve their data mining skills. Methods included in the course are searching the biomedical literature, sequence homology searching and multiple alignments, protein sequence motif analysis, and several genome analytical methods