In the dim and distant past, Pedro’s list was this amazing resource for biologists. Speak to anyone of my age, and they will remember this list; in the early days of the web it was the best place to go, to find out where to find your bioinformatics tools.

Pedro’s list hasn’t been updated since 1995. There are still copies of it around which google will find for you if you want. It turns out that Pedro was, in fact, Pedro Maldonado Coutinho who was a graduate student at the time. A little more poking uncovers his thesis from 1996; this explains why he stopped maintaining the list. A little more poking reveals very little. He worked in France for a while but then disappeared from the web record. A later google hit suggests he might not have left biology altogether — but it’s hard to tell for sure.

Pedro, early web pioneer, I salute you!

Originally published on my old blog site.