Bioinformatics: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:09, 9 February 2025

Revision as of 11:23, 25 February 2025

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The first definition of the term ''bioinformatics'' was coined by [[Paulien Hogeweg]] and [[Ben Hesper]] in 1970, to refer to the study of information processes in biotic systems.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ouzounis |first1=C. A. |last2=Valencia |first2=A. |date=2003 |title=Early bioinformatics: the birth of a discipline—a personal view |journal=Bioinformatics |volume=19 |issue=17 |pages=2176–2190 | pmid=14630646 | doi=10.1093/bioinformatics/btg309| doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="Hogeweg2011">{{cite journal |vauthors=Hogeweg P |title=The Roots of Bioinformatics in Theoretical Biology |journal=PLOS Computational Biology |volume=7 |issue=3 |pages=e1002021 |date=2011 |pmid=21483479 |pmc=3068925 | doi=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002021 | bibcode = 2011PLSCB...7E2021H | doi-access = free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal| vauthors = Hesper B, Hogeweg P |year=1970|title=BIO-INFORMATICA: een werkconcept |trans-title=BIO-INFORMATICS: a working concept |language=nl |journal=Het Kameleon|volume=1 |issue=6| pages=28–29}}</ref><ref>{{cite arXiv |vauthors=Hesper B, Hogeweg P |eprint=2111.11832v1 |title=Bio-informatics: a working concept. A translation of "Bio-informatica: een werkconcept" by B. Hesper and P. Hogeweg |date=2021 |class=q-bio.OT}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |vauthors = Hogeweg P |title=Simulating the growth of cellular forms |journal=Simulation |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=90–96 |year=1978 |doi=10.1177/003754977803100305 |s2cid=61206099 }}</ref> This definition placed bioinformatics as a field parallel to [[biochemistry]] (the study of chemical processes in biological systems).<ref name="Hogeweg2011" />

Bioinformatics and computational biology involved the analysis of biological data, particularly DNA, RNA, and protein sequences. The field of bioinformatics experienced explosive growth starting in the mid-1990s, driven largely by the [[Human Genome Project]] and by rapid advances in DNA sequencing technology.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sadiku |first=Matthew N.O. |last2=Abedo |first2=Phillip O. |last3=Musa |first3=Sarhan M. |date=April 2018 |title=A Primer on Bioinformatics |url=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Philip-Adebo/publication/325536973_A_PRIMER_ON_BIOINFORMATICS/links/5bd1d165299bf12640de0e01/A-PRIMER-ON-BIOINFORMATICS.pdf |journal=International Journals of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering |volume=8 |issue=4cn}}</ref>

Analyzing biological data to produce meaningful information involves writing and running software programs that use [[algorithm]]s from [[graph theory]], [[artificial intelligence]], [[soft computing]], [[data mining]], [[image processing]], and [[computer simulation]]. The algorithms in turn depend on theoretical foundations such as [[discrete mathematics]], [[control theory]], [[system theory]], [[information theory]], and [[statistics]].{{cn|date=May 2024}}