The goals of the Bioinformatics Interest Group are to: 1. Promote collaborations and knowledge-sharing between computational biologists and bioinfor- matics researchers across all institutes within the NIH 2. Provide people with an interest in bioinformatics an opportunity to meet experienced compu- tational researchers that can relay practical knowledge about a given area, thereby establishing a forum through which productive scientific collaborations can be fostered and encouraged 3. Mentor students for professional and academic development, on a peer-to-peer basis