Concept
Bioinformatics
Overview
Bioinformatics ( ) is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops computational methods and software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics integrates principles from biology, chemistry, physics, computer science, data science, computer programming, information engineering, mathematics, and statistics to analyze and interpret biological data. This process can sometimes be referred to as computational biology; however, the distinction between the two terms is often disputed. The term computational biology can refer to building and using models of biological systems.
Computational, statistical, and computer programming techniques have been used for computer simulation analyses of biological queries. They include reused specific analysis "pipelines", particularly in the field of genomics, such as by the identification of genes and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). These pipelines are used to better understand the genetic basis of disease, unique adaptations, desirable properties (especially in agricultural species), or differences between populations. Bioinformatics also includes proteomics, which aims to understand the organizational principles within nucleic acid and protein sequences.
Image and signal processing allow the extraction of useful results from large amounts of raw data. It aids in sequencing and annotating genomes and their observed mutations. Bioinformatics includes text mining of biological literature and the development of biological and gene ontologies to organize and query biological data. It also plays a role in the analysis of gene and protein expression and regulation. Bioinformatic tools aid in comparing, analyzing, and interpreting genetic and genomic data and in the understanding of evolutionary aspects of molecular biology. At a more integrative level, it helps analyze and catalogue the biological pathways and networks that are an important part of systems biology. In structural biology, it aids in the simulation and modeling of DNA, RNA, proteins as well as biomolecular interactions.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Now, we propose in the first place to show, that this law of organic progress is the law of all progress. Whether it be in the development of the Earth, in the development of Life upon its surface, in the development of Society, of Government, of Manufactures, of Commerce, of Language, Literature, Science, Art, this same evolution of the simple into the complex, through successive differentiations, holds throughout…
Herbert Spencer, Essays on education and kindred subjects
States what Bioinformatics is.
If science sought to obtain the knowledge of its object, by investigating each individual thing that is thought through the concept, till by degrees it had learned the whole, no human memory would be equal to the task, and no certainty of completeness would be obtainable. Therefore, it makes use of that property of concept-spheres explained above, that they include each other, and it concerns itself mainly with the…
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea
Close in meaning to Bioinformatics; the term itself is not named.
Into this conception there enters no trace of the hypothesis of an "archæus or vital principle;" and the principles of molecular physics fully justify it.
Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology, Volume 1
Close in meaning to Bioinformatics; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed Bioinformatics
Related ideas
- Artificial intelligence
- Phylogenetic tree
- Interdisciplinarity
- Harvard University
- Mathematics
- Mutation
- Metabolism
- Nucleic acid
- Species
- Physics
- Statistics
- Science
- Computer simulation
- Johns Hopkins University
- Accuracy and precision
- Gene
- Bayesian inference
- Chemistry
- Computer programming
- Computer science
- Computational linguistics
- Algorithm
- DNA
- Biology
Place in the tradition
Part of Philosophy of biology.