Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics

Objectives

At the end
of this lecture, student will be able to

       Define bioinformatics

       Understand the objectives of
bioinformatics

Bioinformatics

What is Bioinformatics?

 It is a inter
disciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding
biological data

Intensive datas can be handled by bio informatics

It deals with the application of computers to collect,
organize, analyse and validate the datas

       Biologists
are increasingly finding that the management of complex data sets is becoming a
bottleneck for scientific advances.

       Therefore,
bioinformatics is rapidly become a key technology in all fields of biology.

The present barrier in bioinformatics include the

       education
of biologists in the use of advanced computing tools,

       the
recruitment of computer scientists into this evolving field,

       the
limited availability of developed databases of biological information, and

       the
need for more efficient and intelligent search engines for complex databases.

       Used
in the field of molecular biology and genomics – hence massive amount of
datas are available

       Databases
– are available – stores data in a uniform and consistence manner – Contain DNA
sequencing, DNA and protein structures

       GenBank
– managed by National center biology information – 1ST DATABASE
setup to store DNA sequencing data – 1982

       EMBL
– European molecular biology laboratory – DNA and RNA sequences – they have
collected information’s from the patents filed and scientific literatures –
western Europe – 17 countries

       EC
– Enzyme
– Alternate names, catalytic activity, diseases associated with
the deficiency of the enzymes

       Protein
databank – 3D structures of proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates

       Protein
modeling
– Proteins – folding or threading

       Use
of protein modeling
– protein in 3D allows for greater understanding of
protein functions – providing a virtual understanding

       Homology
and similarity tools
– used to analyse the similarity between two
structures or sequences

       Molecular
medicine
– Most of diseases are related to genetic and environmental
components – we can search gene directly associated with different diseases –
better drugs can be invented

Bioinformatics – application

Personalized medicine

       Pharmacogenomics
– study how an individual’s genetic inheritance affects body’s response to
drugs

       At
present doctors use trial and error method to find best medicine to treat a
particular patient

       In
future doctors will be able to analyse the patients genetic profile and
prescribe the best available medicine and dosage from beginning

Evolutionary studies

       Sequencing
of genomes from organisms

       Helps
to determine the tree of life

Microbial genomic application

       MGP
– project – to sequence genomes of bacteria

       Useful
in energy production, waste management, industrial processing

       Scientists
can understand these microbes at fundamental level

       Isolate
the genes that give them their unique abilities to survive under extreme
conditions

Objectives

  1. Organizing
    biological data

       Bioinformatics
organizes data in such a way that allows researchers to access existing
information and to submit new entries

Eg. Protein databank – macromolecules

       Information
stored in databank become useless until it is analysed

2. Analysis of data

       To
develop tools and resources – helps in analysis of data

Eg. Having sequenced a particular protein – compare it with
previously characterized sequence

       Development
of such tools require extensive knowledge of computational biology and
understanding of biology

3. Interpretation and application of data

       Third
objective is to use these tools to analyse the data and interpret the results
in a biologically meaningful manner

Summary

       Bioinformatics
means to acquire, store, organize, archive, analyze, or visualize such data

       Objectives
– Organizing, analyzing and interpreting data’s

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