Bioinformatics .doc (abstract)

INTRODUCTION TO BIOINFORMATICS
Bioinformatics can be defined as the application of information technology to biology. It aids in the chromosomal localization of genes, rapid searching to find sequences similar to ones of interest, gene identification and searching of scientific literature. in recent years there has been a huge growth in the amount of biological data being generated. In just a few years we will have the entire human genome sequence. The achievement of all the sequencing is the easy part; the difficult task will be trying to interpret this vast array of sequence data and determine its functions. This should ultimately help us to understand how the human and other organisms work, and provide us bioinformatics is to store biological data in databases and provide computing tools to access and analyse this data
Bioinformatics is a relatively new field that integrates biology with Information science. As the number and size of databases of biochemical and genetic information have' increased over the last few years, it has become important to organize the information and to develop software to understand the significance of the information. This requires the use of computer systems and the development of an interface that makes the data available and unable to scientists all over the world.
Bioinformatics is needed to handle the enormous amount of data being generated by researchers identifying the lengthy DNA sequences of humans, plants, animals, and microorganisms -- life's blueprint -- and other biological data. DNA and protein sequences are particularly amenable to computer analysis, since they can be represented by strings of letters, which computers are very apt to deal with. A DNA sequence is a string of 4 letters (A, C, G and T), and a protein sequence can also be represented by a string of 20 letters, each of which represents an amino acid. Stored digitally, in computers worldwide, are trillions of pieces of information generated by emerging technologies in molecular biology.