Editorial

In its one-and-a-half year history Genome Biology has witnessed the publication of the first plant genome, the first draft of the human genome (twice) and a more than doubling of the number of completed microbial sequences. There has also been a shift in 'functional genomics' away from simple microarray data and towards studies of the expression, structure and function of proteins, pathway and network analysis, and harnessing the power of comparative genomics. Debate has also raged over the past year on the importance and merits of providing immediate world-wide, barrier-free open access to the full text of research articles.