A new computer model for Mycoplasma genitalium, whose streamlined genome carries a mere 525 genes, is an encyclopedic effort to account in mathematical and electronic terms for every molecular interaction in this pathogenic bacterium's life cycle, according to model developers Markus Covert, Jayodita Sanghvi, and Jonathan Karr of Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., and their collaborators from the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Md. Their model is being greeted with praise and

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... ing-both those responses reflecting the ambitious scope of this undertaking.