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<p><strong>Computational biology</strong> is biology that tries to solve biological problems using large amount of computational power and techniques from [[applied mathematics]], [[informatics]], [[statistics]], and [[computer science]]. <br />
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<strong>[[Bioinformatics ]] and Compuational Biology</strong><br />Bioinformatics is an independant dscipline that was formed around mid 1990s. While computational biology is a more generic field of biology where much computing resource is necessary. They are different from each other in many ways. Biological informatics is essentially the reverse of Computational Biology as it is an informatics field where the major application is biological problems. <br />
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<p><strong>Major research areas</strong></p>
<p><strong>Sequence analysis</strong><br />
<p>Another aspect of bioinformatics in sequence analysis is the automatic [[gene finding|search for genes]] and regulatory sequences within a genome. Not all of the nucleotides within a genome are genes. Within the genome of higher organisms, large parts of the DNA do not serve any obvious purpose. This so-called [[junk DNA]] may, however, contain unrecognized functional elements. Bioinformatics helps to bridge the gap between genome and [[proteome]] projects, for example in the use of DNA sequence for protein identification.</p>
<p>''<strong>See also</strong>:'' [[sequence analysis]], [[sequence profiling tool]], [[sequence motif]].</p>
<p><strong>Genome annotation</strong><br />
<p><strong>Computational evolutionary biology</strong><br />
[[Evolutionary biology]] is the study of the origin and descent of [[species]], as well as their change over time. Informatics has assisted evolutionary biologists in several key ways; it has enabled researchers to:<br />
Future work endeavours to reconstruct the now more complex [[Evolutionary_tree|tree of life]].</p>
<p>The area of research within [[computer science]] that uses [[genetic algorithm|genetic algorithms]] is sometimes confused with [[computational evolutionary biology]]. Work in this area involves using specialized [[computer software]] to improve equations, algorithms, or [[integrated circuit]] designs. It is inspired by [[evolutionary principles]] such as [[replication]], [[diversification]] through [[recombination]] or [[mutation]], [[fitness]], survival through [[selection]] or [[culling]], and [[iteration]], collectively called a [[Darwinian machine]] or [[Darwinian ratchet]].</p>
<p>Some modern tools (e.g. [http://www.q-pharm.com/home/contents/drug_d/soft Quantum 3.1] ) provide tool for changing the protein sequence at specific sites through alterations to its amino acids and predict changes in the bioactivity after mutations.</p>
<p><strong>Structure prediction</strong></p>
<p>Protein structure prediction is another important application of bioinformatics. The [[amino acid]] sequence of a protein, the so-called ''primary structure'', can be easily determined from the sequence on the gene that codes for it. In the vast majority of cases, this primary structure uniquely determine a structure in its native environment. (Of course, there are exceptions, such as the [[bovine spongiform encephalopathy]] - aka Mad Cow Disease - prion.) Knowledge of this structure is vital in understanding the function of the protein. For lack of better terms, structural information are usually classified as one of ''[[secondary structure|secondary]]'', ''[[tertiary structure|tertiary]]'' and ''[[quaternary structure|quaternary]]'' structures. A viable general solution to such predictions remains an open problem. As of now, most efforts have been directed towards heuristics that work most of the time.</p>
<p>One of the key ideas in bioinformatics research is the notion of [[homology (biology)|homology]]. In the genomic branch of bioinformatics, homology is used to predict the function of a gene: if the sequence of gene ''A'', whose function is known, is homologous to the sequence of gene ''B,'' whose function is unknown, one could infer that B may share A's function. In the structural branch of bioinformatics homology is used to determine which parts of the protein are important in structure formation and interaction with other proteins. In a technique called homology modelling, this information is used to predict the structure of a protein once the structure of a homologous protein is known. This currently remains the only way to predict protein structures reliably.</p>
<p>See also [[comparative genomics]], [[bayesian network]] and [[protein family]].</p>
<p><strong>Modeling biological systems</strong><br />
<p><strong>High-throughput image analysis</strong><br />
Computational technologies are also used to accelerate or fully automate the processing, quantification and analysis of large amounts of high-information-content [[Biomedical imagery]]. Modern image analysis systems augment the observers ability to make measurements from a large or complex set of images, by improving [[accuracy]], [[objectivity]], or speed. A fully developed analysis system may completely replace the observer. While these systems are not unique to biology related imagery, their application to biologic problems continue to provide unique challenges and solutions, placing several imagery application under the umbrella of Bioinformatics. These systems are in the process of becoming more important for both [[diagnostics]] and research. Some examples: <br />* high-throughput and high-fidelity quantification and sub-cellular localization ([[high-content screening]], [[cytohistopathology]])<br />* [[morphometrics]] are used to analyze pictures of [[embryo]]s to track and to predict the fate of cell clusters during [[morphogenesis]]<br />* clinical image analysis and visualization<br />* determine the real-time air-flow patterns in breathing lungs of living individuals before and during challenge<br />* quantify occlusion size in real-time imagery from the development of and recovery during arterial injury<br />* making behavioural observations from extended video recordings of laboratory animals<br />* infrared measurements for metabolic activity determination</p>
<p><strong>Software tools</strong></p>
<p>The computational biology tool best-known among biologists is probably [[BLAST]], an algorithm for searching large sequence (protein, DNA) databases. [[NCBI]] provides a popular implementation that searches their massive sequence databases.<br />
<p><!-- Please do not add advertisements for commerical tools here. Objective descriptions of noteworthy commercial tools are fine, but ads are not. --></p>
<p><strong>See also </strong></p>
<p>* [[Biomedical informatics]]<br />* [[Biologically-inspired computing]]<br />* [[List_of_publications_in_biology#Bioinformatics|List of publications in bioinformatics]]<br />* [[Molecular modelling]]<br />* [[Morphometrics]]<br />* [[Metabolic network]]<br />* [[Biocybernetics]]<br />* [[Computational biomodeling]]</p>
<p><strong>Related fields </strong></p>
<p>* [[applied mathematics]] &mdash; [[biology]] &mdash; [[computer science]] &mdash; [[informatics]] &mdash; [[mathematical biology]] &mdash; [[theoretical biology]] &mdash; [[Scientific computing]] &mdash; [[cheminformatics]] &mdash; [[computational science]]</p>
<p><strong>External links</strong></p>
<p>* [http://bioinformatics.ws Bioinformatics Wiki Site]<br /> [http://wikiomics.org Wikiomics.org: bioinformatics wiki] for users and developers of bioinformatics worldwide. Focused on practical questions and pointers towards both academic publications and software resources (opened November 2005). <!-- please use it instead of cluttering Wikipedia with links; that's the right place for most of the stuff below --></p><p>* <strong>Major Societies<br />*</strong>[http://www.iscb.org/ The International Society for Computational Biology]</p><p>* Major <strong>Major Organizations</strong><br />**[http://bioinformatics.org/ Bioinformatics Organization (Bioinformatics.Org): The Open-Access Institute]<br />**[http://www.embnet.org/ EMBnet is a science-based group of collaborating nodes throughout Europe and a number of nodes outside Europe]<br />**[http://www.cbse.ucsc.edu/ UCSC Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering]<br />**[http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ European Bioinformatics Institute]<br />**[http://www.embl.org/ European Molecular Biology Laboratory]<br />**[http://www.girinst.org/ Genetic Information Research Institute]<br />**[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ National Center for Biotechnology Information]<br />**[http://www.open-bio.org/ Open Bioinformatics Foundation: umbrella non-profit organization supporting certain open-source projects in bioinformatics]<br />**[http://ncbo.us National Center for Biomedical Ontology]<br />**[<a href="http://www.jgiall-auto.doe.govro/ US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute]piese-auto">piese auto import</pa><p>* Software projects<br />**[http://amoswww.jgi.sourceforgedoe.netgov/ AMOS: a modular, open-source genome assemblerUS Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute]</p><p><strong>Software projects<br />**</strong>[http://wwwamos.biosimgridsourceforge.orgnet/ AMOS: a modular, open-source genome assembler]<br />[http://www.biosimgrid.org/ BioSimGrid: a distributed database for biomolecular simulations]<br />**[http://www.bioconductor.org/ Bioconductor]<br />**[http://www.cbi.cnptia.embrapa.br/SMS Diamond STING]<br />**[http://bioinformatics.upmc.edu/ UPMC Bioinformatics Web Tools]<br />**[http://www.biojava.org/ BioJava]<br />**[http://biomap.org/ BIOMAP Project: Creating a Unified Global Map of various Macromolecular Biological Structures]<br />**[http://www.bind.ca/ Biomolecular Interaction Network Database]<br />**[http://www.bioperl.org/ BioPerl]<br />**[http://www.biophp.org/ BioPHP]<br />**[http://www.biolinux.fac.org.ar/ BioLinux]<br />**[http://www.biopython.org/ BioPython]<br />**[http://www.bioruby.org/ BioRuby]<br />**[http://www.phylo.org/ CIPRES Project: The Cyber-Infrastructure for Phylogenetic Research]<br />**[http://emboss.sourceforge.net/ EMBOSS]<br />**[http://www.ensembl.org/ Ensembl]<br />**[http://www.gmod.org/ GMOD: The Generic Model Organism Database Project]<br />**[http://harvester.embl.de/ HARVESTER: bioinformatic meta search engine for proteins in human, mouse and rat]<br />**[http://manatee.sourceforge.net/ MANATEE: a web-based system for genome annotation and curation]<br />**[http://proteomeontology.org/ Proteome Ontology Project: An effort to build a Protein Ontology Specification, a part of BIOMAP Project]<br />**[http://bioinformatics.georgetown.edu/Sequerome.htm Sequerome]<br />**[http://seqhound.blueprint.org/ Seqhound]<br />**[http://sidhe.cs.uni.edu/marbl.html MARBL: Text Indexing & Retrieval from Bioinformatics Libraries GPL open source software package to search Genbank]<br />**[http://www.cs.uni.edu/~okane/source/IDF/idf.html Inverse Document Frequency Weighted Genomic Sequence Retrieval]<br />**[http://bio.macfast.org/bide/ BiDE - The Bioinformatics Desktop Environment - An Open Source project to develop a compact Red Hat Linux-based single CD installation, which provides all the flavours of bioinformatics to your desktop]<br />**[http://www.biocircle.org/bide BioCircle BiDE Page]<br />**[http://www.ebioinformatics.org/ eBiotools: A software package that brings most of the Bioinformatics programs to the MacOSX]<br />[http://ugene.unipro.ru: UGENE: integrated visual environment for popular command line bioinformatics tools like HMMER, MUSCLE, BLAST, repeats and restriction enzymes analysis etc.]</p><p>*<strong>Comprehensive, Reviewed, Third-Party Course Lists</strong><br />**[http://wbiomed.curtin.edu.au/teach/biochem/resources/Bioinformatics.html A long list of courses world wide].<br />**[http://www.ebi.ac.uk/training/ Training courses] at the [[European Bioinformatics Institute]].<br />**[http://www.ensembl.org/info/courses.html Courses] given about [[Ensembl]].</p><p>*<strong>Major Journals</strong><br />**[http://compbiol.plosjournals.org PLoS Computational Biology] <br />**[http://www.nature.com/msb/index.html Nature Molecular Systems Biology]<br />**[http://bioinformatics.oupjournals.org/ Bioinformatics journal]<br />**[http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcbioinformatics BMC Bioinformatics journal]<br />**[http://www.la-press.com/caninfo.htm Cancer Informatics Open Access journal]<br />**[http://www.comcen.com.au/~journals/bioinfo.htm Online Journal of Bioinformatics ]<br />**[http://www.embnet.org/download/embnetnews/index.html EMBnet.News Online Journal]</p><p>*<strong>Other Important External Sites<br /p><p/strong>[http://omics.org Omics.org]<br />**[http://genomics.org Genomics.org]<br />[http://personalgenome.net PersonalGenome.net]<br />[http://bioinformatics.ws Bioinformatics Wiki Site]<br />[http://www.biocircle.org/ OpenSource Bioinformatics / Computational Systems Biology portal]<br />**[http://www.bionews.in/ Bioinformatics News]<br />**[http://www.bioinfo-online.net/ Bioinfo-Online News]<br />**[http://bio.oreilly.com/ Books and articles on Bioinformatics from O'Reilly]<br />**[http://gchelpdesk.ualberta.ca/servers/servers.php Genome Canada: Canadian Bioinformatics Help Desk]<br />**[http://www.ornl.gov/TechResources/Human_Genome/research/informatics.html Human Genome Project and Bioinformatics]<br />**[http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith Barry Smith's biomedical ontology site]<br />**[http://www.microbesonline.org Virtual Insitute of Microbial Stress and Survival (VIMSS)]</p>
<p><strong>Notes & references</strong><br />
<p><strong>Bibliography</strong><br />
<p> </p>