aid analysis of segmented query sequences from shotgun sequencing assemblies; and directed use of WU-BLAST as a fast, flexible search engine for accurately identifying and masking genome sequences for repetitive elements and low-complexity sequences (the MaskerAid package for RepeatMasker). With doctoral student Miao Zhang, Gish directed development of EXALIN, which significantly improved the accuracy of spliced alignment predictions, by a novel approach that combined information from donor and acceptor splice site models with information from sequence conservation. Although EXALIN performed full dynamic programming by default, it could optionally utilize the output from WU-BLAST to seed the dynamic programming and speed up the process by about 100-fold with little loss of sensitivity or accuracy. In 2008, Gish founded Advanced Biocomputing, LLC, where he continues to improve and support the AB-BLAST package. References Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American bioinformaticians 21st-century American biologists American computer programmers Human Genome Project scientists Washington University in St. Louis faculty