What is bioinformatics?

Bioinformatics is a scientific discipline that applies computer science and information technology to help understand biological processes. For example, the massive amount of sequence data generated by the Human Genome Project requires electronic databases to store, organize, and index it. In addition, the databases need specialized tools for scientists to see and analyze the available information, as well as to submit new or revised sequence data.

New mathematical and statistical methods are continually being developed to help interpret genomic information. For example, they are used to locate a gene within a nucleotide sequence, to predict protein structure or function, and to find relationships or similarities between sequences. Eric Lander, whose initial training was in mathematics, has been a driving force for the development of many of the information technology tools used in the Human Genome Project.

Stuart Schreiber's group is using information technology tools to create a different kind of database. His group is using an approach called chemical genetics to understand the functions of proteins (and ultimately of biological and medical processes) by perturbing their functions using small molecules. New developments in chemistry have provided a recipe for synthesizing thousands of these small molecules systematically and efficiently. The information generated using all these small molecules, linking biological and medical processes to the proteins responsible for them, will need to be stored in a database and analyzed.

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