About the Authors

Robert K. Bradley

rbradley@berkeley.edu

Affiliations Department of Mathematics, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States of America, Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States of America

Adam Roberts

Affiliation Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States of America

Michael Smoot

Affiliation Department of Bioengineering, University of California San Diego, San Diego, California, United States of America

Sudeep Juvekar

Affiliation Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States of America

Jaeyoung Do

Affiliation Department of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America

Colin Dewey

Affiliations Department of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America, Department of Biostatistics & Medical Informatics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America

Ian Holmes

Affiliation Department of Bioengineering, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States of America

Lior Pachter

Affiliations Department of Mathematics, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States of America, Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Wrote the paper: RKB CD LP. Led the development of FSA, wrote most of the code base, and developed the query-specific learning method: RKB. Redesigned the sequence annealing algorithm, constituted the core development team, and managed the project: RKB CD LP. Developed the GUI: AR. Developed a preliminary version of the GUI: MS. Developed the iterative refinement technique: SJ. Developed the parellelization and database modes: JD CD. Provided advice on the dart library, including its algorithms, programming and software components: IH. Created the FSA webserver: LP.