In group testing, the task is to determine the distinguished members of a set of objects L by asking subset queries of the form "does the subset Q of L contain a distinguished object?" The primary biological application of group testing is for screening libraries of clones with hybridization probes. This is a crucial step in constructing physical maps and for finding genes. Group testing has also been considered for sequencing by hybridization. Another important application includes screening

more »

... braries of reagents for useful chemically active zones. This preliminary report discusses some of the constrained group testing problems which arise in biology.