A genome comprises all the genetic material of an organism and contains all the instructions needed to direct its activities. Since a genome also provides a natural reference frame for mapping information about genes and proteins, genome databases, the official repositories of the data produced by the genomic initiatives, are rapidly becoming the primary entry point for accessing biological knowledge. They are continuously enriched with new information and with functional annotations about the genome products and are meant to serve many diverse communities, from biologists to geneticists, from clinical researchers to pharmacologists and more. This implies that a major effort is required for solving the complex issue of visualising the genomic and functional data in an integrated fashion whereas at the same time providing different views of the data, tailored to the many diverse user needs.

Key Concepts:

• Genome databases are the official repositories of the ever growing amount of genomic sequences.
  
• The genome represents a natural framework for mapping the biological data of an organism.
  
• Genome browsers provide integrated and customizable views of the information.
  
• Genome databases and their associated tools are becoming the primary entry points for accessing biological information.
  
• As more data on individual genomes becomes available, genome databases are also the repositories of variation data and of their associated phenotype.
  
• Future challenges are not only related to the sheer size of the data, but also to the need of protecting sensitive information without hampering the exploitation of the data for new discoveries.