What is Bioinformatics? Major Branches and Applications

IAS Mains General Studies Sample Answers

Define 'Bioinformatics'.
How does it work? What are the major branches and applications?

'Bioinformatics' is an inter-disciplinary approach in which application of computer science and information technology is to the field of molecular biology. The term was coined by Paulien Hogeweg in 1979. Bioinformatics now entails the creation and advancement of databases, algorithms, computational and statistical techniques, and theory to solve formal and practical problems arising from the management and analysis of biological data. Mathematical and computing approaches are used to understand biological processes. Development in the field of genomics and other molecular research technologies and development in information technologies have combinedly produce large amount of information related to molecular biology giving way to this new branch of science.

Diagrammatic representation of the divergence of modern taxonomic groups from their common ancestor.Common activities in bioinformatics include mapping and analyzing DNA and protein sequences, aligning different DNA and protein sequences to compare them and creating and viewing 3D models of protein structures. The Human Genome project has increased importance of bioinformatics. The research will help development and success in sequence alignment, protein structure prediction, prediction of gene expression and protein-protein interaction, genome wise association studies and many other areas.

Bioinformatics is similar but distinct science from biological computation and computational biology. Biological computation uses bioengineering and biology to build biological computers, whereas bioinformatics uses computation to better understand biology. Bioinformatics and computational biology have similar aims and approaches, but differ in scale: bioinformatics organizes and analyzes basic biological data, whereas computational biology builds theoretical models of biological systems, just as mathematical biology does with mathematical models.

Explore more:

  • About Bioinformatics
  • Paulien Hogeweg (Dutch theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher studying biological systems as dynamic information processing systems at many interconnected levels.)

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