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Bioinformatics Information Resources
Bioinformatics describes the
use of computing technologies and mathematical models to analyse biological
systems, especially in deciphering genetic codes (such as the human genome
project). ‘Bioinformatics’ is a blanket term that covers five main processes:
acquirement of data, database development, data analysis, data assimilation,
and the analysis of assimilated data. Data acquirement generally refers to
the storage of data generated directly by laboratory equipment.
Databases
are utilised to store the collected data in such a way as to allow efficient
storage, searching, and examination of the data they contain. Analysis of
the data involves querying the database to provide relevant samples, which
are then processed to transform the data into a usable form (into meaningful
information). Once the data has been analysed the process of data
assimilation/integration means the researcher may query other databases in
order to contextualise their findings.
The final process which occurs once
assorted types of data are integrated, involves storing the data which has
been analysed so that when other information is gathered it can be combined,
forming a ‘knowledge base’, which can be queried by professionals to elicit
the body of research in that specific area.
Within the human genome project bioinformatics were utilised to predict the
composition of molecules and to model these compositions. The role of
bioinformatics is often to obtain biologically oriented data, and organizing
this information into databases, so that useful information can be extracted
such as looking for similarities between newly discovered and previously
analysed genes.
These databases can also be queried to establish whether the
sequence of a protein can suggest how it functions or to compare active
cancer genes with health genes in a normal cell. Using the example of the ‘Human Genome Project’, analysis of the data in early stages focused upon
assessing whether similarities existed between various genes or between
different protein strands. Mathematical algorithms were developed by
researchers in order to expedite this process, allowing for similar genes or
protein sequences to be found very quickly.
Once decoded, some of the genetic sequence databases were released into the
public domain. The best-known database is GenBank that provides a collection
of all publicly available DNA sequences. Of course, some databases have not
been released into the public sphere and are sold to research institutions
and to the biochemical industry. Bioinformatics have particular applications
to the biochemistry and pharmaceutical industries. Many private
pharmaceutical companies have invested heavily to purchase data from the ‘Human Genome Project’ as well as investing in their own ‘in-house’ genomic
programmes.
Databases of findings are complied and analysed using
technologies developed specifically for the bioinformatics field. Such
databases are crucial to aid the development of new drugs since the vast
majority of medications available on the market target particular proteins,
themselves being small chemical molecules that bind to larger proteins
within the body. Having a corpus of data specifically about particular
proteins within the body, readily available, makes the process of
identifying new targets for research much simpler. |
