Serendipity in bioinformatics, the tribulations of a Swiss bioinformatician through exciting times!

This is a personal recollection of the events that led me to develop software tools and databases in the context of what has recently been termed proteomatics (bioinformatics in the context of proteomics). As will be manifest from this article, the creations of PC/Gene, SWISS-PROT, PROSITE and ExPASy, were mostly serendipitous unplanned events. From the very beginning of my biochemistry studies in 1978 up to today, I was extremely lucky to be able to pursue my combined interests in proteins and computer analysis and to be able to follow new avenues when they opened up. I also feel privileged to have met and collaborated with many researchers whose work has been instrumental in the emergence of the field of bioinformatics. More significantly many of these people became much more than colleagues. They are friends scattered around the world but united by a common passion, uncovering the meaning of the genetic information. It is to these friends that I dedicate this articl