What is bioinformatics?
Bioinformatics is normally defined as the application of computing technology to biological problems. This is a very wide definition and includes such areas as computational biology or e-biology but normally excludes computational chemistry or chemoinformatics (also known as cheminformatics). At ChiBio Informatics the emphasis is on the analysis of sequences and structures using computer-based searching techniques. We organise information by integrating current database technologies with more specifically biological computing techniques such as phylogenetic analysis, multiple sequence alignment, or sequence database searching.
The science of bioinformatics lies in the expertise of the analyst to understand and interpret the information latent in the molecular sequences under analysis. Such information can include the biochemical and biophysical properties of the amino acids and their particular order in the sequence of a specific protein. The relationship between sequence and function determined by such properties can yield valuable information about the way in which protein sequences interact with their environment, including other protein sequences, metabolites or drugs.
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