Specific drugs are being developed on the basis of known molecular structures to block virus action and provide new therapies for HIV infection and its consequences. This initiative permits the development of faster computers and better algorithms for predicting molecular structure and function from genetic sequence, which is an important area of research. Nearly 10 million users worldwide are connected to the current Internet at this time. NLM provides support for connecting medical centers and community hospitals to the Internet and for developing prototype biomedical digital image libraries that use the Internet as a high-speed distribution channel. The NII will provide an increasingly fast communication line for sharing data among laboratories on an international scale.
Repositories play an important role in providing resources for basic science research.