Current or potential application of Bioinformatics Computational biology and bioinformatics are interdisciplinary field that develops and applies computational methods to analyse large collections of biological data, like genetic sequences, cell populations or protein samples, to generate new predictions or discover new biology. Bioinformatics serves as a link between life sciences and computer science. The computational methods develop algorithms and programs
that simulate biochemical processes and analyse molecular biological data. Supplemented by artificial intelligence and machine learning, bioinformaticsmakes a decisive contribution to understanding molecular biological processes in an organism and using these findings for the future of industrial development and production. Bioinformatics are essentials not only to medical applications but as well as non-medical as environment, agriculture, forensics and many more. Shared below are some potential areas and applications of bioinformatics:
Medicine Bioinformatics has led to advances in understanding basic biological processes which in turn have helped in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of many genetic diseases.
Drug discovery
Bioinformatics explores the causes of diseases at the molecular level, explains the phenomena of the diseases on the gene/pathway level, makes use of computer techniques such as data mining to analyse and interpret data faster thus reducing the cost and time of drug discovery. Next, in-Silico allows prediction of unexpected side-effects before clinical trials and screening of repurposing opportunities of existing, novel, or abandoned drugs. Personalised medicine research attempts to identify individual solutions based on susceptibility profile of everyone – patient’s family history, social circumstances, environment, behaviours, etc. The knowledge is expected to enable new approaches to diagnosis, drug development, and individualised therapy. Preventive medicine such as immunisations consists of measures taken to prevent diseases or injuries, rather than curing them or treating their symptoms. In the analysis of mutations that cause cancer, gene identification by sequence inspection and prediction of splice sites allows mutations to be corrected easily. Gene therapy is a novel form of drug delivery that enlists the synthetic machinery of the patient’s cell to produce a therapeutic agent. It involves the efficient introduction of functional gene into the appropriate cells of the patient to produce enough protein encoded by transferred gene (transgene) so as to precisely and permanently correct the disorder. Strategies of gene therapy can be through gene addition, removal of harmful gene or control of gene expression.
Personalised medicine
Preventive medicine
Gene therapy
Agriculture The sequencing of the genomes of plants and animals will provide enormous benefits for the agricultural community. Bioinformatics provides systematic information about genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics of living organisms. The elucidation of the complexity of genes and their networking is also fundamental for being eventually translated into breeding practice for crops or livestock, contributing to their health, resistance, and productivity.
Crop improvement
Bioinformatics has useful application in developing plant varietal information system. The detailed information about various types of plant varieties can be developed using highly heritable characters. Such information can be used in various ways as for varietal identification in distinctness, uniformity and stability testing, in grouping of varieties on the basis of various highly heritable characters, and in sorting out of cultivars for use in pre-breeding and traditional breeding. The information can be stored in the computer memory and be retrieved as and when required.
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Malaysian Technology Strategic Outlook 2019/2020 Intergration of High Technology
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