Bioinformatics: The Future Science

Prima facie, there seems to be no similarity between biology and information science. Yet, bioinformatics is one of the most happening disciplines now. It combines biological knowledge with computational tools. Biological molecules are immensely large and incredibly complex! Describing them in terms of worksheet requires a large number of fields.Human genome project has amassed tremendous amount of data. The challenge now lies in deriving knowledge out of this data. For this, sophisticated tools are required to query on the database. The databases or datasets themselves are currently present in widely varying formats, and use different methods of classification. Integrating these datasets is an important yet challenging task. Bioinformatics hopes to do this and much more. The final output will be in the form of a new drug discovery, especially in the field of genetically transmitted diseases such as Huntington’s Chorea. Or, it may be manifested by producing a strong, pest-resistant variety of a crop. Bioinformatics may also throw light on genotype-phenotype equation and answer such intriguing question as "how speciation occurs"? This book is conveniently divided into two sections. The first section introduces the readers to the science of bioinformatics, and discusses its applications. The second section elaborates upon the anticipated future challenges in bioinformatics.