Computers in Biology and

Medicine
Name- Vaishnavi A. More
Class-MSc Biotechnology Part-2
Roll no. 203251003
 Contents
• What is Bioinformatics
• Scope of Bioinformatics
• Bioinformatics in Biology-
1. Genome sequencing
2. Bioinformatic tools
3. Bioinformatic analysis
• Bioinformatics in Medicine-
1. Drug designing
2. Drug repositioning
 What is Bioinformatics

• Bioinformatics is the application of tools of computation and analysis to the

capture and interpretation of biological data.
• Bioinformatics is essential for management of data in modern biology and
medicine.
• The bioinformatics toolbox includes computer software programs such as
BLAST and Ensembl, which depend on the availability of the internet.
• Analysis of genome sequence data, particularly the analysis of the human
genome project, is one of the main achievements of bioinformatics to date.
• Prospects in the field of bioinformatics include its future contribution to
functional understanding of the human genome, leading to enhanced discovery
of drug targets and individualized therapy.
Scope of Bioinformatics

• Bioinformatics has many inter-disciplinary

fields which it interacts with, mainly are Biology
and Medicine
• We’ll discuss bioinformatics used in Biology and
medicine in brief in the next few slides.
 Bioinformatics in Biology
• The areas of Biology that bioinformatics covers are as follows-
1. Genome sequencing- The analysis of the emerging genomic sequence data and
the human genome project is a landmark achievement for bioinformatics.
Random sequencing of the whole genome also called the “shot gun” technique
was used to sequence the genome of Haemophilus influenzae in 1995. This was
very first complete genome of any free living organism to be sequenced followed
by other bacteria Mycoplasma genitalium and Mycobacterium tuberculosis was
followed by those of other eukaryotic species such as Caenorhabtidis elegans (a
worm), Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly), and Arabidopsis thaliana (mustard
weed).
2. Bioinformatic Tools - The main tools of a bioinformatician are computer
software programs and the internet. A fundamental activity is sequence analysis
of DNA and proteins using various programs and databases available on the
world wide web.
Anyone, from clinicians to molecular biologists, with access
to the internet and relevant websites can now freely
discover the composition of biological molecules such as
nucleic acids and proteins by using basic bioinformatic
tools.
Some of the websites are listed aside. The most commonly
used websites are NCBI, Ensembl, GenBank.

3. Bioinformatic Analysis- Because of the diverse nature of

emerging data, no single comprehensive database
exists for accessing all this information. However, a
growing number of databases that contain helpful
information for clinicians and researchers are available.
Information provided by most of these databases
is free of charge to academics. These databases include
both “public” repositories of gene data as well as those
developed by private companies.
Bioinformatics in Medicine
• Mainly in Drug Designing and Drug Repurposing
1. Drug Designing- Drug design, also known as
rational drug design, is the inventive process of
finding new medications based on the knowledge of a
biological target.
• Drug design defines the design of molecules that
are complementary in shape and charge to the
bimolecular target with which they interact and
therefore will bind to it.
• Drug development is the process of bringing a new
pharmaceutical drug to the market once a lead
compound has been identified through the process
of drug discovery.
• Examples- Trade name- Relenza
Generic name- Zanamivir
Drug Repurposing
• The process of finding new
uses outside the scope of the
original medical indication for
existing drugs is known as drug
repositioning.
• Examples are given aside-