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About
Bioinformatics
 INTRODUCTION
We are now witnessing two technology-driven revolutions, that will
transform our world within the next 10 to 20 years. When the modern biotechnology industry
took form in 70s and the 80s, the industry relied upon molecular biology techniques for
the cloning and isolation of genes and hence forth the mass production of gene-encoded
proteins. These efforts were motivated by the utility of such proteins for therapy. This
has initiated a scientific revolution driven by genomics and bioinformatics. The field of
genomics, however , relies upon bioinformatics, which is management and analysis of
biological information stored in databases.
WHAT IS BIOINFORMATICS ?
Bioinformatics is a newly emerging interdisciplinary research area which
may defined as a interface between biological and computational sciences. The word
“bioinformatics” is dereived by combining biology and informatics. It has
it’s roots in computational biology , a field that has been driven during the last
two decades largely by enormous amounts of nucleiotide sequence data generated and
deposited in the public domain databases. It is a science of storing, extracting,
organizing, analayzing, interpreting and utilizing information for research and product
development. The fundamentals of bioinformatics lie in transforming biological polymers
such as nucleic acids and proteins into sequences of digital symbols.
AIMS OF BIOINFORMATICS
The aims of bioinformatics are
three fold
To organize of data in a way that allows
researchers to access existing information and submit new entries as they are produced.
To develop tools and resources that aid in data analysis
To use these tools to analyse data and interpret
results in a biologically meaningful manner.However, these require a strong understanding
biology and expertise in computational theory.
APPLICATIONS OF BIOINFORMATICS
Bioinformatics has
diverse applications in many areas.
Sequence Homology analysis : The search for
similarities between different biomolecules enables systemic organization of data and
identification of protein homologues.
Drug design : Defining genotypes associated
with patho-physiological conditions may lead to the identification of potential molecular
targets to design drugs.
Providing common user friendly platforms :
This could help a researcher to identify interesting subject areas for detailed analysis
and place new observations in a proper context.
Application in medical sciences : If bioinformatics is combined
with experimental genomics , a lot of advances could be made to revolutionize the future
of health care.
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