Bioinformatics as a dynamic field responds to the demand for analysis and interpretation poised by the aberrant wealth of data obtained from human genome project and DNA sequencing in other organisms. Bioinformatics largely depends on tools and techniques make quick analysis in no time this makes it a rapid and reliable process. Using the various tools and methods of bioinformatics, we can be assured of an immediate result and high level of accuracy.
BLAST and Ensembl are some of the discernible tools useful in bioinformatics which apart from analysis of the complex genetic research data also monitor gene variation and expression among other roles. Still, this data is not helpful to many, and a specialized bioinformatician should read the data, analyze it and translate this to comprehendible languages.
Bioinformatics keep research data in the database either online or on local storage to avail the data to a broader audience. Submitting DNA sequence to a database and genomic mapping and mapping database are but a few trends in genetic research and bioinformatics. The genetic research aims to generate genetic data also referred to as biological data. Some of the critical details harbored in such data include genes and gene products, variants, phenotypes, and much more.
These are all analyzed and stored together in a database to enable users mainly scientist to retrieve, add, or extract genetic data among other relevant information from the database. The raw biological data is often meaningless, and at times destructive, amalgamating such data and giving the sense requires the contribution of a bioinformatics scientist who is knowledgeable in biology and information technology. Unlike financial and physical analysis, the analysis of genome is more complicated as it is never done in isolation, a basic understanding of life processes is essential in connecting the dots.
Biological data is generally heterogeneous and comprises data derived from gene sequence, sequencing process, graphs, patterns and constraints among other modalities. The twenty-first century promises enormous use of biological data, and there is a potential for big data in the near future.
The role of bioinformatics in genetics can never be overemphasized. Bioinformatics primarily propels us towards achieving the goals of the genetic research. Genomics and its subfield of transcriptomics, which studies genome-wide changes in the RNA that is transcribed from DNA, studies many genes are once. Analyzing and interpreting such large-scale, complex data requires the help of computers.
The human mind, superb as it is, is incapable of handling this much information. Bioinformatics is a hybrid field that brings together the knowledge of biology and the knowledge of information science, which is a sub-field of computer science. Genomes of organisms are very large.
The human genome is estimated to have three billion base pairs that contain about 25, genes. For comparison, the fruit fly is estimated to have billion base pairs that contain 13, genes. Additionally, a subfield of genomics called transcriptomics studies which genes, among the tens of thousands in an organism, are turned on or off at a given time, across multiple time points, and multiple experimental conditions at each time point.
Bioinformatics is important to genetic research because genetic data has a context. The context is biology. Life forms have certain rules of behavior. The same applies to tissues and cells, genes and proteins. They interact in certain ways and regulate each other in certain ways. The data generated by genomics might be analyzed by the same methods used by engineers and physicists who study financials markets and fiber optics, but analyzing the data in a way that makes sense requires knowledge of biology.
Being a combination of different branches of life sciences, the objective of bioinformatics is to develop methodologies and tools to study large volumes of biological data in order to organize, store, systematize, visualize, annotate, query, understand and interpret those data.
In simpler terms, bioinformatics involves the application of computer technology to manage large volumes of biological information. Bioinformatics has proven quite useful in medicine as the complete sequencing of the human genome has helped to unlock the genetic contribution for many diseases. Its applications include drug discovery, personalized medicine, preventative medicine and gene therapy.
According to WHO , infectious diseases account for over 13 million deaths yearly. Developing countries record the most number of deaths from infectious diseases and this was contributed to the non-availability of drugs and high cost associated with the drugs if available. One of the main problems encountered is the development of cheap and efficient drugs for a disease can be solved by rational drug design using Bioinformatics.
Furthermore, the pharmaceutical industry has moved from the trial and error process of drug discovery to a rational and structure-based drug design.
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