# 28) Des Higgins - Early days of bioinformatics, Clustal and democratising sequence alignments

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-european-molecular-biology-laboratory-embl-alumni-chats-series-7525543/28-des-higgins-early-days-of-bioinformatics-clustal-and-democratising-sequence-alignments
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-european-molecular-biology-laboratory-embl-alumni-chats-series-7525543/28-des-higgins-early-days-of-bioinformatics-clustal-and-democratising-sequence-alignments.md
Podcast: [The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Alumni Chats Series](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-european-molecular-biology-laboratory-embl-alumni-chats-series-7525543)
Published: 2026-06-18T23:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://rss.com/podcasts/the-european-molecular-biology-laboratory-embl-alumni-chats-series/2849395
Audio file: https://content.rss.com/episodes/350256/2849395/the-european-molecular-biology-laboratory-embl-alumni-chats-series/2026_05_22_12_41_19_2bcaa0b2-7c0d-4dfb-94f7-58ce823edfc6.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-european-molecular-biology-laboratory-embl-alumni-chats-series-7525543/episodes/28-des-higgins-early-days-of-bioinformatics-clustal-and-democratising-sequence-alignments
Duration seconds: 2160

## Resource

Des Higgins (EMBL-EBI Group Leader, 1990-1996) speaks with Thomas Vaccari (EMBL Predoctoral fellow, 1999-2004) about the "wild west" early days of bioinformatics, the establishment of EMBL-EBI and the collaboration which led to the Clustal programme. Des also reflects on the impact on his career of EBI co-founder Michael Ashburner This interview was conducted in July 2023. Alumni Chat contributors are members of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) community. The opinions expressed are their own and are not necessarily representative of the views of EMBL or any other party. The mere appearance of content on EMBL Alumni media accounts does not constitute an endorsement by EMBL. Production and Editing: EMBL Alumni Relations Content and Interviews: Angus Lamond and Thomas Vaccari Music: Eco Technology by Aleksey Chistilin from Pixabay Thanks to: EMBL Audiovisual and EMBL Design Sponsored by: EMBLEM © European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL)

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## Transcript

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