The Bioinformatics Institute (BII) was set up by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (ASTAR) in July 2001; it was re-launched with a strong scientific program in the autumn months of 2007. Located in the Biopolis, BII is conceived as the computational biology research and postgraduate training institute as well as a national resource centre in bioinformatics within the Biomedical Research Council (BMRC) of ASTAR. The BII focuses on theoretical approaches aimed at understanding biomolecular mechanisms that underlie biological phenomena, the development of computational methods to support this discovery process, and experimental verification of predicted molecular and cellular functions of genes and proteins with biochemical methods.