A Practical Guide to Bioinformatics

Sharmistha Roy

Bioinformatics Computing By Bryan Bergeron First Indian Edition Prentice Hall, 2003 Price: Rs 250

There are two fields that are developing at a very fast pace—one is computer science and the other being bioinformatics.

Bioinformatics, the integration of mathematical, statistical and computer methods to analyse biological, biochemical and biophysical data, is fast becoming the means for speeding up and enhancing biological research.

Bryan Bergeron, a physician and a faculty member at the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, brings this subject to an introductory level.

Readers don’t need to be armed with an MBBS degree—a working knowledge of any object-oriented programming language and a penchant for biostatistics are sufficient to read this book.

What makes this book stand out is the simplicity with which every aspect in the field is handled and has been clubbed with computational logic.

The central dogma or the universal truth of the field is where the author introduces the reader to the potential of the subject and also the pitfalls. Prof Bergeron intrigues the readers’ mind by questions as to what the ‘killer app’ in bioinformatics would be. The killer apps in other fields being electronic spreadsheets and the desktop laser printer—solutions that transformed the way people worked and brought the world to the door of the researcher. While he juggles with the prospect of a patient simply submitting a tissue sample and getting a customised cure or the concept of designer drugs—on the benefits of the field—he also fears how the knowledge could be misused for military purposes to harm mankind.

The subsequent chapters discuss in detail the various tools and concepts available for analysing the vast knowledge base that this field has built over a period. Some of them being databases, networks, search engines, visualisation of biophysical data, statistics, data mining, pattern matching, modelling and simulation—concepts that the author introduces with relevance to the field of biology. While Prof Bergeron discusses the already available tools under each of these topics, he also whets the appetite of the reader by laying the foundations of what lies ahead.

While bioinformatics has enhanced the speed at which solutions are delivered, there’s a caveat here—this is no magic potion for producing results on-the-fly. In the author’s own words, "In the end, computers and computational methods are simply tools. Like a sculptor, chipping away at the rock covering a statue, it’s up to the readers to select tools that can best help create their vision."

Prof Bergeron unravels the mystique surrounding one of the upcoming fields of today making ‘Bioinformatics Computing’ a must read for any bioinformatics enthusiast or anyone who wants to know more about this field from the beginning.

The author is a test designer with Geometric Software.