Bioinformatics is the process of relating large computer databases to biological systems which help us better understand life's processes in healthy and disease states, and find new or better drugs. Bioinformatics is being practiced worldwide by academic groups, companies and other research consortia. It represents the future of biotechnology.

Bioinformatics is typically associated with massive databases of gene and protein sequences and structure/function information into which new sequences are deposited. The databases are searched by remote computer access in order to compare and contrast to known sequences. The emerging field of functional bioinformatics focuses on the developement of ontologies or concept classifications fed into algorithms used to perform computations of the functions of biomolecules. Other emerging applications are automated preprocessing of sequences obtained in large-scale sequencing labs, integrating statistical genetic methods, sequence information, gene variablity in populations, and epidemiology data, all in an integrated environment modeling genetic and metabolic networks, and various data mining methods.

Collectively, the fields of genomics, proteomics, and computer science all utilize the new field of bioinformatics as their operating tool.

 
Contact
M.S. Program in Genomics and Bioinformatics

Dr. Jack Vanderhoek
Dept. of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Ross Hall, Room 230
2300 Eye Street NW
Washington DC. 20037
(202)-994-2929
bcmjyv@gwumc.edu