Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
Computational biology is more precisely defined as the systematic development and application of computing systems and computational solution techniques to models of biological phenomena. Bioinformatics is sometimes used interchangeably with the term computational biology. Bioinformatics is defined as the systematic development and application of computing systems and computational solution techniques to the analysis of data obtained by experiments, modeling, database search, and instrumentation in regard to biological topics. This involves the discovery and implementation of algorithms that facilitate the understanding of biological processes, emphasizing the application of statistical and machine learning techniques, as well as the development of software tools, new data management strategies and new analysis and visualization tools to cope with the exponential explosion of data and new understanding of biological processes.
Research in this field might involve such topics as ---
- the creation of algorithms and heuristics that are computationally efficient on serial and parallel computers;
- the primary (sequence), secondary (folding), and tertiary (3-dimensional) structures of DNA, RNA and protein sequences;
- genomic diversity (the study of disease genes, variation, mutations, etc.);
- comparative genomics (whole genomes, genome structures, gene locations and function);
- genomic engineering;
- the development and application of theoretical techniques for the design of molecular medicine;
- analytical chemistry techniques or molecular biological experimental work, guided by computational structural analysis.
The Specialization in Computing
To prepare for work and/or graduate education in this field, students majoring in Biology, Marine Biology, EBE, or Plant Biology may choose to complete a Specialization in Computing. Information on this specialization is available in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Undergraduate Office (Life Sciences 2325), or see http://www.eeb.ucla.edu/ugrad_computspec.php .
INTERESTING WEB SITES:
- The Computational Biology Home Page of the Baskin Center for Computer Science and Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, at http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/research/compbio/.
- A useful site on bioinformatics from the Indiana Molecular Biology Institute at the University of Texas, at
- A list of bioinformatics and computational biology resources, including links to bioinformatics centers and institutions, computational biology guides & documentation, software, academic programs, and meetings, from the UCSD Supercomputer Center, at http://www.unl.edu/stc-95/ResTools/biotools/biotools4.html.
- A tutorial on the role of computational biology in structural genomics, at http://www-fp.mcs.anl.gov/~gaasterland/sg-review-slides.html.
- The Keck Center Visualization Gallery, at http://www-bioc.rice.edu/Keck2.0/gallery/.