Overview
Bioinformatics is the field of science in which biology, computer science, and information technology merge to form a single discipline. The ultimate goal of the field is to enable the discovery of new biological insights, as well as to create a global perspective from which unifying principles in biology can be discerned.
At the beginning of the "genomic revolution", a bioinformatics concern was the creation and maintenance of a database to store biological information, such as nucleotide and amino acid sequences. Development of this type of database involved not only design issues but the development of complex interfaces whereby researchers could both access existing data as well as submit new or revised data.
Ultimately, however, all of this information must be combined to form a comprehensive picture of normal cellular activities, so that researchers may study how these activities are altered in different disease states.
Therefore, as the field of bioinformatics has evolved its most pressing task has become the analysis and interpretation of various types of data, including nucleotide and amino acid sequences, protein domains, and protein structures.
The actual process of analyzing and interpreting data is referred to as computational biology. The rationale for applying computational approaches to the understanding of various biological processes includes:
- a more global perspective in experimental design
- the ability to capitalize on the emerging technology of database-mining
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As the NIH National Center for Biotechnology Information so eloquently says:
"Understanding nature's mute but elegant language of living cells is the quest of modern molecular biology. ...The staggering volume of molecular data and its cryptic and subtle patterns have led to an absolute requirement for computerized databases and analysis tools. The challenge is in finding new approaches to deal with the volume and complexity of data ... and to transform data into knowledge, knowledge that will lead to a better understanding of the biological processes underlying both health and disease."
The field of bioinformatics is where the scientific quest to transform biological data into useable knowledge takes place. Bioinformatics is arguably one of the most exciting and challenging new careers in the health field today. In this "cutting edge" profession, you will deal directly or indirectly with the health discoveries being made through the Human Genome Project and related gene mapping experiments.
You can download, save and print a PDF of this career profile:
Bioinformatics 14 May 2008 [pdf, 153 KB]
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