The difficulty in visualizing and browsing genomic databases has become critical. Scientists struggle to interact with current data sets as the flood of new data swells around them. Genbank, currently listing 16 billion basepairs, is doubling every six to ten months.

Traditional genomic data visualization and browsing tools often fail because:

• They are based on the WIMP (Windows Icons Menus and Pointers)paradigm.
• They force methodology on the viewer rather than offering substance.
• They do not offer a global view of the data, but rather concentrate on the small.
• Links between disparate chunks of data are not displayed to show semantic proximity.
• Data are represented in a single method without offering multiple perspectives or levels of detail.

Are there new metaphors for data visualization and browsing in molecular biology and genomics? What tools, available in other domains, might be useful to illustrate this burgeoning field?

This presentation reviews three tool-sets, BioWidgets, ISYS, and MetaFam, each addressing these issues differently.