What is bioinformatics?

Bioinformatics is the combined study of biology and computer science, specifically information sciences, to solve practical biological problems.

The term "bioinformatics" was first quoted in the 1970s. There is more to bioinformatics than just computer science and biology since it also involves the study of molecular chemistry, statistics, biochemistry, and engineering.

This field is closely related to computational biology; however, the main difference is that bioinformatics is the study of using computational tools to make biological data more comprehensive and useful for further applications, while computational biology is the application of computational and mathematical tools and approaches to deal with theoretical and experimental problems in biology.

Why do we need bioinformatics?

In this modern era of everchanging advancements and technology, many biological problems are still unsolved. These problems require great effort and hours of research from huge databases that are almost impossible for an individual to track and solve independently.

For example, the human body contains over two million proteins, while the record for total proteins is over 85 million! If a new kind of virus existed in nature, we would have to match its protein structure with all the massive amounts of proteins already known to mankind. Then, after closely matching and studying its characteristics, we would be able to determine what kind of vaccine would be needed.

Even predicting the protein structure itself requires years of research and effort. To determine the structure, one must also know the protein sequences that define that one protein. Furthermore, out of billions of protein sequences, only a limited number of sequences are known. This is where we need a tremendous amount of computation to fill the gaps in biological problems and make computer science’s significance prevalent in biology. Moreover, considering the complex and delicate nature of biological problems, we need great precision and accuracy in our solutions. All the more reason to understand the fields of bioinformatics and computational biology.

Applications of bioinformatics

The following are some applications of bioinformatics:

• Genomics: The study of analyzing diseases, genetic variations, and relationships between different species.

• Drug development: Studying diseases at a molecular level to determine a drug’s molecular characteristics and development.

• Proteomics and structural biology: Analyzing proteins to better understand their sequences, structures, and roles in biological processes and nature.

• Personalized drug synthesis: Understanding an individual’s genetic makeup for personalized drug synthesis and use.

• Disease diagnosis: Determining a disease’s susceptibility and developing medicine accordingly.

• Transcriptomics: Understanding RNA transcripts to analyze gene expression patterns in tissues and various conditions.

• Agricultural development: Analyzing crops to improve their traits like disease resistance, nutritional value, and production.

• Environmental studies: Studying genetic data to learn more about biodiversity and ecosystems.

• Biotechnology: Aiding in designing and developing genetically modified organisms for various industrial and agricultural purposes.