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Top: Science: Biology: Bioinformatics

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Overview

Bioinformatics is the science of using information technology to answer biological questions. It has been a rapidly evolving field since the explosion of genome sequencing projects which produced vast amount of biological data for many different organisms. In the past two decades, the amount of biological data including genetic sequences and biomedical literature were growing exponentially. The advancement in terms of processing power and data handling ability brought by the computing technology has enabled many new analyses on this huge volume of data. In its broadest sense, bioinformatics deals with devising computing tools (software) to facilitate biological data analyses. Since biological data were originated from living systems, there are different distinct categories of biological data reflecting multitude levels of biological organizations starting from linear DNA sequences to complex multi-factorial phenotypic traits and dependent on different objectives of analyses.

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Types of biological data and their uses

Most biological data can be obtained at free from the Internet as most biological databases were compiled by public organizations and the Internet is the most convenient communication channel for distribution. Biological data may include, but not be limited to:
(1) Biomedical literature;
(2) DNA, RNA, protein sequence data;
(3) gene expression data;
(4) 3D molecular structure data; and
(5) biochemical pathway data.
To use above biological data, different software tools will be needed. For the data retrieval part, it is often processed via web interface. For example, you can retrieve both biomedical literature and sequence data via the "Entrez" web interface provided by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). To conduct analysis on the collected data, both free and commercially available software can be used. However, since there is numerous resource available, the use of them requires consideration on the scope of one's own work as well as judgment on the data sources' authoritative status, accuracy and timeliness.