Written by Guy Plunkett III, PhD in Bacteriology

As a bacteriologist and genomics researcher at the University of Wisconsin, and in my current role as Senior Scientist at DNASTAR, data has always played a central role in successful scientific pursuits. I’ve been in the research game long enough to remember having to travel to another institution’s library in order to access a particular journal, or repeatedly badgering other researchers for data that they had to copy by hand or send as photographs. Now in this modern Age of Google, we take it for granted that literature and data will be available online, including decades worth of digitized back issues.