Why Bioinformatics is important..??

The genome sequencing projects has produced large amounts of nucleotide and protein sequence data. Traditionally, molecular biology research was carried out entirely at the experimental laboratory bench but the huge increase in the scale of data being produced in this genomic era has seen a need to incorporate computers into this research process.

Sequence generation, and its subsequent storage, interpretation and analysis are entirely computer dependent tasks. However, the molecular biology of an organism is a very complex issue with research being carried out at different levels including the genome, proteome, transcriptome and metabalome levels. Following on from the explosion in volume of genomic data, similar increases in data have been observed in the fields of proteomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics.

The first challenge facing the bioinformatics community today is the intelligent and efficient storage of this mass of data. It is important to provide easy and reliable access to this data. The data itself is meaningless before analysis and the sheer volume present makes it impossible for even a trained biologist to begin to interpret it manually. Therefore, incisive computer tools must be developed to allow the extraction of meaningful biological information.

There are three central biological processes around which bioinformatics tools must be developed:

DNA sequence determines protein sequence

Protein sequence determines protein structure

Protein structure determines protein function