bioinformatics

Definition: Bioinformatics is defined as the large-scale storage, retrieval and assessment of data from biological studies. This field draws on high-performance computing, software and information technology.

Genomic information is too voluminous for even a large team of researchers to remember or analyze, so the information is placed in complex databases in which the gene and protein structures and functions can be easily accessed, cross-referenced or queried.

Bioinformatics is the application of computer science and information technology to the field of biology and medicine.

Bioinformatics deals with algorithms, databases and information systems, web technologies, artificial intelligence and soft computing, information and computation theory, software engineering, data mining, image processing, modeling and simulation, signal processing, discrete mathematics, control and system theory, circuit theory, and statistics, for generating new knowledge of biology and medicine, and improving and discovering new models of computation (e.g. DNA computing, neural computing, evolutionary computing, immuno-computing, swarm-computing, cellular-computing).

Java, XML, Perl, C, C++, Python, R, SQL and MatLab are the some of the more prominent software technologies used in this field.

Major applications

 biological databases
 sequence analysis (sequence alignment, sequence database)
 genome annotation
 computational evolutionary biology
 biological litterature analysis (text mining)
 analysis of gene expression
 analysis of gene regulation
 analysis of protein expression
 analysis of mutations in cancer
 comparative genomics
 modeling biological systems (computational systems biology)
 high-throughput image analysis
 in silico biology
 metabolic network modelling
 molecular design software
 computational biomodeling
 computational genomics
 functional genomics
 morphometrics
 phylogenetics
 structural bioinformatics

• protein structure prediction
• molecualr interaction prediction

Websites

 NCBI
 infobiogen.fr
 UCSC Genome Bioinformatics
 BioIT Alliance

Journals

 Briefings in Bioinformatics
 Bioinformatics
 PLOS Computational Biology: Translational Bioinformatics

References

 Pop M, Salzberg SL. Bioinformatics challenges of new sequencing technology. Trends Genet. 2008 Mar;24(3):142-9. PMID: 18262676

 Hanauer DA, Rhodes DR, Sinha-Kumar C, Chinnaiyan AM. Bioinformatics approaches in the study of cancer. Curr Mol Med. 2007 Feb;7(1):133-41. PMID: 17311538

 Hu P, Bader G, Wigle DA, Emili A. Computational prediction of cancer-gene function. Nat Rev Cancer. 2007 Jan;7(1):23-34. PMID: 17167517

 Kanehisa M, Bork P. Bioinformatics in the post-sequence era. Nat Genet. 2003 Mar;33 Suppl:305-10. PMID: 12610540