Many of the basic research projects conducted by CBB investigators serve to enhance and strengthen NCBI's suite of publicly available databases and software application tools. Collaborative research efforts, among NCBI investigators as well as with the external research community, have led to the development of innovative algorithms (BLAST, PSI-BLAST, VAST, and COGs), novel research approaches (text neighboring) and fundamental resources (PubChem and CDD) that have transformed the field of computational biology. Algorithms and applications currently under development have the potential to further advance scientific discovery.