Guiding readers from the elucidation and analysis of a genomic sequence to the prediction of a protein structure and the identification of the molecular function, Introduction to Bioinformatics describes the rationale and limitations of the bioinformatics methods and tools that can help solve biological problems. Requiring only a limited mathematical and statistical background, the book shows how to efficiently apply these approaches to biological data and evaluate the resulting information.

The author, an expert bioinformatics researcher, first addresses the ways of storing and retrieving the enormous amount of biological data produced every day and the methods of decrypting the information encoded by a genome. She then covers the tools that can detect and exploit the evolutionary and functional relationships among biological elements. Subsequent chapters illustrate how to predict the three-dimensional structure of a protein. The book concludes with a discussion of the future of bioinformatics.

Even though the future will undoubtedly offer new tools for tackling problems, most of the fundamental aspects of bioinformatics will not change. This resource provides the essential information to understand bioinformatics methods, ultimately facilitating in the solution of biological problems.

Utilizing high speed computational methods to extrapolate to the rest of the protein universe, the knowledge accumulated on a subset of examples, protein bioinformatics seeks to accomplish what was impossible before its invention, namely the assignment of functions or functional hypotheses for all known proteins. The Ten Most Wanted Solutions in Protein Bioinformatics considers the ten most significant problems occupying those looking to identify the biological properties and functional roles of proteins. -Problem One considers the challenge involved with detecting the existence of an evolutionary relationship between proteins. -Two and Three studies the detection of local similarities between protein sequences and analysis in order to determine functional assignment. -Four, Five, and Six look at how the knowledge of the three-dimensional structures of proteins can be experimentally determined or inferred, and then exploited to understand the role of a protein. -Seven and Eight explore how proteins interact with each other and with ligands, both physically and logically. -Nine moves us out of the realm of observation to discuss the possibility of designing completely new proteins tailored to specific tasks. -And lastly, Problem Ten considers ways to modify the functional properties of proteins. After summarizing each problem, the author looks at and evaluates the current approaches being utilized, before going on to consider some potential approaches. introbul Features

Take Control of Your Data and Use Python with Confidence Requiring no prior programming experience, Managing Your Biological Data with Python empowers biologists and other life scientists to work with biological data on their own using the Python language. The book teaches them not only how to program but also how to manage their data. It shows how to read data from files in different formats, analyze and manipulate the data, and write the results to a file or computer screen. The first part of the text introduces the Python language and teaches readers how to write their first programs. The second part presents the basic elements of the language, enabling readers to write small programs independently. The third part explains how to create bigger programs using techniques to write well-organized, efficient, and error-free code. The fourth part on data visualization shows how to plot data and draw a figure for an article or slide presentation. The fifth part covers the Biopython programming library for reading and writing several biological file formats, querying the NCBI online databases, and retrieving biological records from the web. The last part provides a cookbook of 20 specific programming "recipes," ranging from secondary structure prediction and multiple sequence alignment analyses to superimposing protein three-dimensional structures. Tailoring the programming topics to the everyday needs of biologists, the book helps them easily analyze data and ultimately make better discoveries. Every piece of code in the text is aimed at solving real biological problems.

Take Control of Your Data and Use Python with Confidence Requiring no prior programming experience, Managing Your Biological Data with Python empowers biologists and other life scientists to work with biological data on their own using the Python language. The book teaches them not only how to program but also how to manage their data. It shows how to read data from files in different formats, analyze and manipulate the data, and write the results to a file or computer screen. The first part of the text introduces the Python language and teaches readers how to write their first programs. The second part presents the basic elements of the language, enabling readers to write small programs independently. The third part explains how to create bigger programs using techniques to write well-organized, efficient, and error-free code. The fourth part on data visualization shows how to plot data and draw a figure for an article or slide presentation. The fifth part covers the Biopython programming library for reading and writing several biological file formats, querying the NCBI online databases, and retrieving biological records from the web. The last part provides a cookbook of 20 specific programming "recipes," ranging from secondary structure prediction and multiple sequence alignment analyses to superimposing protein three-dimensional structures. Tailoring the programming topics to the everyday needs of biologists, the book helps them easily analyze data and ultimately make better discoveries. Every piece of code in the text is aimed at solving real biological problems.