What is Bioinformatics?
Bioinformatics applies methods from computer science to scientific problems in the life sciences. Starting as a connecting discipline between computer science and the life sciences, bioinformatics has become an independent sub-discipline over the last decades.
High throughput experiments have become increasingly important in chemistry, biology, medicine and pharmacology. They result in huge amounts of complex data in the areas of genome squencing, expression profiles of proteins and structure elucidation of proteins as well as interactions between biomolecules (proteins, RNA, low molecular-weight compounds). Bioinformatics develop software tools to prepare, evaluate and analyze these data. Bioinformatics develops software tools to prepare, analyze, and interpret these data, playing a crucial role in modern life sciences by generating knowledge from large datasets and making it usable for predicting biological phenomena.
FaBI has agreed on the following definition of bioinformatics as the foundation of their work:
“Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary science. By bioinformatics we understand the research, development and application of computer-based methods used to answer biomolecular and biomedical research questions. The focus lies on models and algorithms for data at the molecular and cellular levels, including:
- genomes and genes
- gene and protein expression and ‑regulation,
- metabolic and regulatory pathways and networks,
- structures of biomacromolecules, esp. DNA, RNA and proteins,
- molecular interactions between biomacromolecules and between biomacromolecules and other substances like substrates, transmitters, neurotransmitters and inhibitors as well as
- molecular characterization of ecological systems.”