What is Bioinformatics?
I frequently get asked What is Bioinformatics? This is not a question that has an exact, easy answer due to the size and complexity of the Bioinformatics field. I find that very often I give different answers each time this question is asked. I will attempt to answer this question in a way that won’t be too complex but also not too shallow. However, I will inevitably be forced to leave complex parts of Bioinformatics out of this answer.
The basic answer is that Bioinformatics is the field where Computer Science, Biology, and Statistics meet. But even for a basic answer that is still too vague. I like to think of it as using Computer Science and Statistics to find and solve biological problems. Personally I like to think of Bioinformatics having two main focuses: Data Management and Research.
Data Management
A good chunk of Bioinformatics is devoted to purely Data Management, which is not an easy task considering the amount of data that Scientists generate. In the age of high-throughput machines, gigabytes of biological data can be produced in a matter of minutes or even seconds — particularly from machines that sequence DNA and Protein sequences and measure gene expression levels in a cell. The challenge lies in storing this data in databases in a way that will preserve the data and allow it to be easily accessible so it can be used in current and future research. The use of a number of different file formats adds even more complexity to this challenge.
Keeping the data accessible involves programming front-end applications to these databases that allow these large amounts of data to be viewed and interpreted. Extra care is taken to use optimal search algorithms so that the stored data can be quickly searched over. Computationally expensive algorithms are used to try and align sequences in order to find similar or exact matches. Using statistics, data mining techniques sometimes have to be used in order to extract the desired information from these vast databases.
Research
The Bioinformatics field is a research field so even within data management there is research being performed. Faster and more accurate computational algorithms are always sought after. New methods for biological data analysis are frequently being developed. Bioinformaticians use genomic and gene expression data to find new protein-protein interactions within cells. Algorithms and statistical methods are used to predict the location of genes within long strands of DNA sequences. The complex structures of DNA and Protein molecules are predicted.
The list of research being performed goes on and on. The current research and future potential of Bioinformatics is what makes this field exciting.
