JYC: CSM17 BioinformaticsCSM17 Week 10: Summary, Conclusions, The Future.....? Bioinformatics is –the study of living systems –with respect to representation, organisation, manipulation, distribution, maintenance and use of information

JYC: CSM17 Bioinformatics includes... computer applications in biology IT and IS for management & analysis of biological data –e.g. classification/identification systems, databases, development of analysis tools computational molecular analysis, molecular biology –DNA, RNA, protein amino acid sequences simulations of biological systems artificial intelligence, neural networks

JYC: CSM17 Week 2: Biological Classification fundamental concepts –taxon, species, genus traditional methods –based on ‘expert’ opinion nomenclature (naming) –type concept, type specimens, descriptions taxonomy & systematics cluster analysis / numerical taxonomy

JYC: CSM17 Week 3: Biological Identification a fundamental activity traditional methods - keys special problems –variation, availability of data –information content computer-based methods –DELTA

JYC: CSM17 Week 4: Evolutionary systems evolution and phylogeny historical systems modern methods tools and software –PHYLIP

JYC: CSM17 Week 5: DNA and Genetics genetics, Gregor Mendel and his peas cell structure –mitochondria –chloroplasts DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) –nucleotide bases –A, C, G, T

JYC: CSM17 Week 6: DNA, RNA and Proteins transcription (reading the DNA template) –producing messenger RNA (mRNA) –A, C, G and U (replaces T in RNA) translation (mRNA -> protein) –tRNA builds up protein –one amino acid at a time protein structure –primary (AA sequence) –secondary (e.g. spiral, helix) –tertiary (complex folding) Sequence alignment –for comparison and identification

JYC: CSM17 Week 7: Simulations #1: genetic algorithms (GAs) evolutionary computation –simulate sexual reproduction in populations –using ‘chromosomes’ and crossover

JYC: CSM17 Week 8: Simulations #2: plant morphology –leaves, branching, phyllotaxis fractals virtual reality –Lindenmayer systems

JYC: CSM17 Week 9: Simulations #3: biological neurons –nerve cells –dendrites=inputs –axon=outputs natural neural networks (the brain) artificial neural networks (ANNs) –multilayer perceptron (MLP) –self-organising feature map (SOM)

JYC: CSM17 Why is Bioinformatics Important to Mankind? analysis of our ‘own’ code –human genome project –1990s-now biotechnology / genetic engineering gene therapy resulting in... –cures for diseases –prevention of infection –increase in food production

JYC: CSM17 Why is it Important to Us? storage, access and presentation of large amounts of data (databases, HCI) design of data analysis tools (software eng.) pattern recognition (neural networks/expert systems) –e.g. identification of unknown specimens or gene sequences prediction (neural networks)

JYC: CSM17 What will happen in the future? genetic fingerprinting will be used as standard user IDs will include DNA information identification of genetic diseases, allergies –will affect life insurance policies large amounts of data (databases) more complete phylogenies / evolutionary reconstruction ‘designer’ drugs

JYC: CSM17 Useful Websites careers in bioinformatics: bioinformatics.htm Bioinformatics resources links: