By
Audriana Sanchez
BIO – 181L
Professor Sandy Bledsoe
19 November 2014
Audriana Sanchez
Professor Sandy Bledsoe
Biology 181L
19 November 2014
Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics is the applications of computers, software, and mathematical models to the management of biological information from large data sets. It is the storage and analysis of biological information by the use of computers. “Computers are used to gather, store, analyze, and integrate information that can then be applied to gene-based drug discovery and development” (What is bioinformatics). This has become an essential part of biological research activity, and is rapidly becoming as ordinary in the biosciences as molecular biology has been since the 1980s. “The science of Bioinformatics, which is the melding of molecular biology with computer science, is essential to the use of genomic information in understanding human diseases and in the identification of new molecular targets for drug discovery” (What is bioinformatics). The primary goal of Bioinformatics is to increase the understanding of biological processes. It is the "determination of the sequence of the entire human genome (approximately three billion base pairs)” (What is bioinformatics). The focus on developing and applying computationally intensive techniques has led to achievement of this goal. "With Bioinformatics, scientists can compare data from the genetic material of a variety of living things, from tiny bacteria to larger organisms, such as humans” (Bioinformatics, 2012). Bioinformatics has made it possible for scientists to be able to analyze genomes and their functions. Bioinformatics has provided an impressive and extensive computational power, which allows the study of entire sets of genes and their interactions, along with the comparison of genomes from different species. With the use of Bioinformatics, scientists can collect and analyze data from people throughout different parts of the
Cited: Bioinformatics. (2012). In Biotechnology: Changing Life Through Science. Detroit: U*X*L. Retrieved from http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/scic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetails Campbell, N. A., & Reece, J. B. (2008). Biology (8th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings. What is bioinformatics | BioPlanet. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2014, from http://www.bioplanet.com/what-is-bioinformatics/