Bioinformatics

A rapidly growing interdisciplinary area that draws on computer and information sciences, with a strong foundation in biochemistry, biology, biophysics, chemistry, genetics, and molecular biology.  With the aid of advanced computing and statistical techniques, it attempts to manage, process, and make sense of large amounts of data, such as the sequencing of the human genome.  It also deals with large databases containing information about the structure and sequencing of proteins in plants and animals as a means of discovering and developing new drugs.  Another of its aims is to provide solutions to one of the most difficult issues in molecular biology, namely, the protein-folding problem.

See Biology, Biophysics, Genomics, Human Genome Project (HGP), Molecular biology, Molecular biophysics, Proteins, Protein-folding problem