| dc.description.abstract | Though a relatively young discipline, bioinformatics is finding increasing
importance in many life science disciplines, including biology, biochemistry,
medicine, and chemistry. Since its beginnings in the late 1980s, the success of
bioinformatics has been associated with rapid developments in computer science,
not least in the relevant hardware and software. In addition, biotechnological
advances, such as have been witnessed in the fields of genome
sequencing, microarrays, and proteomics, have contributed enormously to the
bioinformatics boom. Finally, the simultaneous breakthrough and success of
the World Wide Web has facilitated the worldwide distribution of and easy
access to bioinformatics tools.
Today, bioinformatics techniques, such as the Basic Local Alignment Search
Tool (BLAST) algorithm, pairwise and multiple sequence comparisons, queries
of biological databases, and phylogenetic analyses, have become familiar tools
to the natural scientist. Many of the software products that were initially unintuitive
and cryptic have matured into relatively simple and user-friendly products
that are easily accessible over the Internet. One no longer needs to be a
computer scientist to proficiently operate bioinformatics tools with respect to
complex scientific questions. Nevertheless, what remains important is an
understanding of fundamental biological principles, together with a knowledge
of the appropriate bioinformatics tools available and how to access them. Also
and not least important is the confidence to apply these tools correctly in order
to generate meaningful results. | en_US |
