Discovering Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics

Description

Genomics, in contrast, is the study of the entirety of an organism’s genes – called the genome. Using high-performance computing and math techniques known as bioinformatics, genomics researchers analyze enormous amounts of DNA-sequence data to find variations that affect health, disease or drug response. In humans that means searching through about 3 billion units of DNA across 23,000 genes. The focus of proteomics is a biological group called the proteome. The proteome is dynamic, defined as the set of proteins expressed in a specific cell, given a particular set of conditions. They serve a variety of functions within the cell, and there are thousands of distinct proteins and peptides in almost every organism. Bioinformatics is largely (not exclusively) a computer-based discipline. Computers are in fact very essential to handle large volumes of biological data, their storage and retrieval. We have to accept the fact that there is no computer on earth (however advanced) which can store information, and perform the functions like a living cell. Thus a highly complex information technology lies right within the cells of an organism. This primarily includes the organism’s genes and their dictates for the organism’s biological processes and behaviour. This book will focus on functional genomics and how to search and use the information using bioinformatics.