Scientists have developed high-throughput tools to probe the inner workings of living cells. Technologies that obtain sequence information from DNA, RNA and protein molecules work in conjunction with tools such as X-ray devices, nuclear magnetic resonance machines and cryo-electron microscopy to reveal the three-dimensional conformation of these molecules. More recent technologies — such as next-generation DNA, RNA and protein sequencing along with mass spectrometry — strive to investigate the interactions between the various proteins and genes within a cell. The result of these investigations is the production of huge amounts of data.
The objective of bioinformatics is to store, retrieve, manipulate, visualize, analyze, integrate and interpret data from a variety of data sources so we can fully understand the vast array of processes that occur in living cells, as well as understand Earth’s biodiversity by revealing species, together with their dynamics and interactions.
For human health, understanding the disease pathway is essential to treat the more than 6,000 genetic disorders along with cancers and Alzheimer’s disease and many communicable diseases. Applications of this knowledge include drug design and medical diagnostic procedures. Similarly, understanding the biological processes of other species including microorganisms will provide insights relevant in agriculture, biotechnology and fundamental biology.
News
Beyond ancestry: Do extreme environments shape microbial genomes?
Evolutionary biologists have long known that DNA, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of all organisms, contains a record of ancestry.
But could genomes also bear an imprint of the environments in which organisms evolved? According to a recent bioinformatics study, the answer, at least for some life forms and for some extreme environments, is an unexpected yes.
Using machine learning to identify and classify deadly astroviruses
A team of researchers at the Cheriton School of Computer Science, along with their colleagues at Western University, have successfully classified 191 previously unidentified astroviruses using a new machine learning-enabled classification process.
Some extremophiles have similar genomic signatures even though they are unrelated
Extremophiles are species that are adapted to live at the edges of biological tolerance, in a range of environments that seem inhospitable to life by human standards. These extremely hardy organisms are found in all three domains and all six kingdoms of life, the highest and second highest levels of classification biologists use to categorize living things based on common ancestry.