Overview
Français
ABSTRACT
This article deals with bioinformatics from its origins until now. The principal aim of this discipline, dedicated to the analysis of biological information, is to identify the information contained in the sequence of macromolecules and their structure. The in-depth analysis of protein and nucleic sequences and of genomes (such as the optimal alignment of two sequences, the search for similarities, etc.) is detailed in this article. Related to the objects of the studies of molecular biology and genomics, bioinformatics has recently welcome the development of new parallel techniques such as DNA chips.
Read this article from a comprehensive knowledge base, updated and supplemented with articles reviewed by scientific committees.
Read the articleAUTHOR
-
Jean-Michel CLAVERIE: Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Université de la Méditerranée and Genomic and Structural Information Laboratory, CNRS (Marseille)
INTRODUCTION
Bioinformatics is the discipline of analyzing biological information, mainly contained in the sequence of macromolecules (nucleic acids and proteins) and their three-dimensional structure. It is a theoretical branch of biology, largely predating the "genomics revolution" of the 1990s.
Bioinformatics is not simply the application of traditional computer science concepts and tools to biological data. It covers a whole range of highly specific techniques, intimately linked to the objects of study of molecular biology and genomics.
More recently, the introduction of massively parallel experimental techniques (e.g. DNA chips), producing a mass of digital data, has led bioinformaticians to adopt more general mathematical and statistical methods, developed in other scientific fields confronted with large volumes of data ("data mining").
Finally, bioinformatics is inextricably linked to the existence of major international public databases, the establishment of numerous Internet servers, and the "open access" attitude of its developers.
The Ultimate Scientific and Technical Reference
CAN BE ALSO FOUND IN:
This article is included in
Healthcare technologies
This offer includes:
Knowledge Base
Updated and enriched with articles validated by our scientific committees
Services
A set of exclusive tools to complement the resources
Practical Path
Operational and didactic, to guarantee the acquisition of transversal skills
Doc & Quiz
Interactive articles with quizzes, for constructive reading
Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics, from the pioneers to the present day
Bibliography
Websites
BLAST portal and NCBI databases : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Other fast BLAST server (Gigablaster) : http://www.igs.cnrs-mrs.fr/
Reference site on animal genomes: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ensembl/
...
The Ultimate Scientific and Technical Reference
