Bioinformatics:Education
From Purdue Genomics Database Facility
This is the beginning of a series of pages focused on Bioinformatics education at the K-12, undergraduate and graduate levels.
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Contents |
Participants
- Michael Gribskov, Professor of Biological Sciences and Computer Science, Purdue University, gribskov@purdue.edu
- Mary Ritke, Associate Professor in Biology, University of Indianapolis, Mritke@uindy.edu
Add your name here
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
The terms bioinformatics and computational biology are often treated as synonomous. People do see a distinction, with computational biology generally regarded as the broader term (although see bioinformatics.org for a contrary opinion). For the purpose of this project, I suggest that we take a broad viewpoint and not get into a religious debate over definitions. For this reason, I did not make the title of this section bioinformatics versus computational biology.
What is Bioinformatics?
- European bioinformatics Institute (EBI)
- Bioinformatics is the application of computer technology to the management and analysis of biological data. The result is that computers are being used to gather, store, analyse and merge biological data. see more
- National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
- Bioinformatics is the field of science in which biology, computer science, and information technology merge to form a single discipline. The ultimate goal of the field is to enable the discovery of new biological insights as well as to create a global perspective from which unifying principles in biology can be discerned. see more
- Bioinformatics.org
- Roughly, bioinformatics describes any use of computers to handle biological information. In practice, the definition used by most people is narrower; bioinformatics to them is a synonym for "computational molecular biology"---the use of computers to characterize the molecular components of living things. see more
- National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- Research, development, or application of computational tools and approaches for expanding the use of biological, medical, behavioral or health data, including those to acquire, store, organize, archive, analyze, or visualize such data. [see more], for the official wording, see NIH WORKING DEFINITION OF BIOINFORMATICS AND COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY July 17, 2000
- Wikipedia
- However bioinformatics more properly refers to the creation and advancement of algorithms, computational and statistical techniques, and theory to solve formal and practical problems posed by or inspired from the management and analysis of biological data. see more
What is Computational Biology?
- National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- The development and application of data-analytical and theoretical methods, mathematical modeling and computational simulation techniques to the study of biological, behavioral, and social systems. [see more], for the official wording, see NIH WORKING DEFINITION OF BIOINFORMATICS AND COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY July 17, 2000
- Wikipedia
- Computational biology, on the other hand, refers to hypothesis-driven investigation of a specific biological problem using computers, carried out with experimental and simulated data, with the primary goal of discovery and the advancement of biological knowledge. see more
Course Offerings
Online Courses
University Level
Purdue University (Lafayette Campus)
- Biol478/CS478/Stat490B - Introduction to Bioinformatics
- Team taught course introducing sequence analysis, alignment, motif definition and search, computational phylogenetics, and protein modeing This course may also be taken as a graduate level course (Biol595) or as a 4 credit version that includes study of basic literature (Biol595B). (Note that the Stat490B designator is temporary and will vary year by year; this number is for fall 2006).
- CS 590V - Biomolecular Simulation
- Molecular dynamics simulation and modeling of proteins and other biomolecules. more...
- BIOL595A - Protein Bioinformatics
- Bioinformatic methods for the analysis of protein sequence and structure. (Note that the Stat490B designator is temporary and will vary year by year; this number is for spring 2006)
- Stat590B - Bioinformatics Seminars Series
- A weekly seminar series available to students for credit, but also open to the public. Covers a broad range of topics in bioinformatics, computational biology, and statistical genetics. See Fall 2006 schedule for more.
- AGRY600/BIOL695W - Genomics
- Primary focus is on experimental methods in genomics, but 1/3 of course is focused on Computational Genomics (Note that the BIOL695W designator is temporary and will vary year by year; this number is for fall 2006)
