Bioinformatics—Research Applications

Abstract

Bioinformatics is a rapidly developing branch of biology which derives knowledge from computer analysis of biological data and is highly interdisciplinary, using techniques and concepts from informatics, statistics, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, and linguistics. It has many practical applications in different areas of biology and medicine and it describes the use of computers to handle biological information. It is synonymous with “computational molecular biology” which means use of computers for the characterization of the molecular components of living things and analyzing the information stored in the genetic code as well as experimental results from various sources, patient statistics, and scientific literature. Research in bioinformatics includes storage, retrieval, and analysis of the data. Richard Durbin, Head of Informatics at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, believes that all biological computing is not bioinformatics, e.g. mathematical modeling is not bioinformatics, even when connected with biology-related problems. Bioinformatics is mainly management and subsequent use of biological information, particularly, genetic information. Fredj Tekaia from the Institut Pasteur defines “Classical” bioinformatics as the mathematical, statistical and computing methods that aim to solve biological problems using DNA and amino acid sequences and related information.