BARRY G. HALL is Director of the Bellingham Research Institute, Adjunct Professor of Genomics and Bioinformatics at the Allegheny-Singer Research Institute's Center for Genomic Sciences, and Professor Emeritus of Biology, University of Rochester, USA. He was a founding member of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution and has been Editor-in-Chief of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution , and on the Editorial Boards of Genetica , the Journal of Molecular Evolution , and the Journal of Bacteriology .