Biozentrum, University of Basel, Division of Molecular Microbiology, 70 Klingelbergstrasse, 4056 Basel, Switzerland. Charles-J.Thompson@unibas.ch
The world's most creative producers of natural pharmaceutical compounds are soil-dwelling bacteria classified as Streptomyces. The availability of the recently completed Streptomyces coelicolor genome sequence provides a link between the folklore of antibiotics and other bioactive compounds to underlying biochemical, molecular genetic and evolutionary principles.