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What is bioinformatics?

What is bioinformatics?. +. BIO INFORMATICS. Bioinformatics is the use of computers to solve biological problems. How large is your DNA?. 3 billion (3 x 10 9 ) base pairs.

ayanna-wilson
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What is bioinformatics?

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  1. What is bioinformatics? + BIO INFORMATICS Bioinformatics is the use of computers to solve biological problems

  2. How large is your DNA? 3 billion (3 x 109) base pairs • How many phone books would you need, if each book had: • 1000 pages • 10000 letters per page • How high would your stack of books be if each book was 5 cm thick? 600 books → stack is 30 m tall!

  3. How large is your DNA? • 3 billion (3 x 109) base pairs • How many DVD-ROMs would you need if: • 1 base = 1 byte • 1 DVD = 4.7 Gigabyte = 4.7 * 109 byte 2 DVDs Computers are essential for the storage of large amounts of data

  4. Dealing with data 3.000.000.000 base pairs… 600 phone books! How to find information? Imagine that you have to find phone number 471-1435 … Computers are essential to find information among a large amount of data

  5. Databanks Databanks are “storage places” for information. By sorting information in a clever way, things can be retrieved easier later on. Three important databanks in bioinformatics: • EMBL : nucleotide sequences (DNA, RNA) • Swiss-Prot : protein sequences and their function • PDB : protein structures

  6. Development of biotechnology and bioinformatics • 3 elementary components: • Experimental development: the development of new methods and techniques in the lab • Discoveries and other advances in knowledge • Computer improvement

  7. Important molecules

  8. Protein structure

  9. What makes a protein fold? Hydrophobic interaction Disulphide bond Hydrogen bond Ionic interaction

  10. The Human Genome Project • The idea for this project was born in 1988. At that time, scientists predicted that it would take around 20 years to complete the project • 3.000.000.000 base pairs were sequenced in 2003 • Only 2% of the genome contains information about proteins. At this time, it is still unknown what the other 98% does => is this “junk” DNA? • We have around 20,000 genes in our genome. This is not much when you think that a worm with 350 brain cells has barely fewer genes. Therefore the hot question is: how many proteins are really encoded in those 20,000 genes? • Half of the genes code for proteins of (currently) unknown function

  11. SNPs and mutations

  12. Homology: genomic analysis

  13. Amino acid sequence Eiwit X: ALLELAMKLAIGNSGP Eiwit Y: ALLLIAMKLAIGNSGP X Y Homology

  14. So now we know… … That there is a lot of information available, so it must be ordered … That computers are essential to search the information … That we still have to research a lot of things: we now have a rich “bio-vocabulary”, but we still can’t really speak the language of life

  15. www.bioinformatics-at-school.eu

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