So we get together with partners every three or four months. Still, some partners worry that their password-protected work areas are vulnerable to snooping competitors. In such cases, says Leach, CuraGen offers the greater security of a dedicated line. Leach himself, however, believes that the SSL encryption used by CuraGen is perfectly sound. It is, he points out, the same encryption method widely used to transmit credit card information.
Leach is a kind of professional hybrid, one part biologist, one part IT geek.
As early as 1993, before the emergence of browsers, he would join dozens of other researchers logging in from all over the world in online discussions of the implications of certain gene sequences. In 1996 Leach was hired by CuraGen to act as a liaison between the biologists and the software designers. When he arrived, he was both thrilled and dismayed. As a biologist, it was demoralizing. It's possible that research that would have taken 10 or 15 years could be generated here in six weeks.