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.
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.
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.
In On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin described the evolutionary relationships between organisms as branches on a tree, a diagrammatic representation of all species that have ever existed connected by common descent.
The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth. The green and budding twigs may represent existing species; and those produced during each former year may represent the long succession of extinct species.
