Introduction to Bioinformatics: A Theoretical and Practical Approach was written as an introductory text for the undergraduate, graduate, or professional. This text provides scientists with both a biological framework to understand the questions life scientist confront in the context of the computational issues and tools that are currently available for scientific research It also provides the life scientist with a resource to the various computational tools that are available all supported with their underlying mathematical foundations. The book is divided into four main sections. The first two sections provide an overview of the various biological processes that govern an organism and impact health. The first section, Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology, describes basic cellular structure and the decoding of the genome. The second section, Molecular Genetics covers the regulation of genomes and the molecular genetic basis of disease as a consequence of genetic replication. Clinical human genetics and the various clinical databases are also reviewed. The third section, the Unix Operating System, demystifies the Unix system used throughout the world to support advanced computation tools. In addition to information on the installation and management of Unix-based software tools, examples of command line sequence analyses are presented that will enable the research to become as comfortable in a command-line environment as they are in the Graphical-User Interface environment. The final section, Computer Applications, provides information on the management and analysis of DNA sequencing projects, along with a review of how DNA can be modeled as a statistical series of patterns. It follows with a discussion of the various genome databases, the representation of genomes, and methods for their large scale analyses. Protein visualization, and transcription profiling including the use of analysis software for systems
The genomic revolution that has spawned microarrays and high throughput technologies has produced vast amounts of complex biological data that require integration and multidimensional analysis. In Introduction to Bioinformatics: A Theoretical and Practical Approach, leading researchers and experts introduce the key biological, mathematical, statistical, and computer concepts and tools necessary for physical and life scientists to understand and analyze these data. For physical and computer scientists, the book provides a sound biological framework for understanding the questions a life scientist would ask in the context of currently available computational tools. Here, the basic cellular structure and the biological decoding of the genome, the long-range regulation of the genome, the in silico detection of the elements that impact long-range control, and the molecular genetic basis of disease as a consequence of replication are explained. Reviews of clinical human genetics, the various clinical databases, and pertinent issues in population genetics complete this tutorial.
For life scientists, a complete discussion of the UNIX operating system, which is commonly used to support advanced computational tools, offers biologists graphical-user-interface comfort in a command-line environment, plus an understanding of the installation and management of UNIX-based software tools.
It is in the applications sections that the book provides a common meeting ground for life and physical scientists. Here they will find examples of the management and analysis of DNA sequencing projects, the modeling of DNA as a statistical series of patterns, various methods of pattern discovery, protein visualization, and the use of multiple sequence alignment to infer both functional and structural biological relationships.
Cross-disciplinary and highly instructive, Introduction to Bioinformatics: A Theoretical and Practical Approach offers life, mathematical, computer,and statistical scientists an integrated foundation for using today's many new computational advances to elucidate the nuances of both genetic code and integrated biological systems.
