It seems like more and more we are seeing a shift away from "full service shops" doing both genomics/proteomics and the bioinformatics analysis that is necessary to make use of the data produced. The announcement today that the National Center for Genome Research has just fired a third of its staff - (primarily their software developers) seems indicative that the same trend I've been observing in Canada is going strong in the U.S. as well.

Why do you think this is happening?

Is the bioinformatics software available finally good enough that the biologists running the genome centers no longer need to maintain a staff on hand to create new databases/analytical methods as they are needed?

Is it simply the case that government funding agencies still don't understand the importance of personell -- happily paying millions for new machines but (lets just be polite here) and say "hesitant" to fund even an intern to manage and interpret the data being produced.

?