| Biology data is growing at a rate faster than Moore's Law, the observation
that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 months.
The trace files of nucleotide sequence data for one human would take
up 300 trillion bytes. All this raw knowledge that needed to be analyzed,
stored, and spread to other biologists created the field of bioinformatics.
Bioinformatics is a general term meaning using computers in biological
research. The word itself is so new that most dictionaries don't include
it.
Bioinformatics emerged as a field as biology technology increased
and the amount of data grew. As the amount of data that researchers
found increased, they turned more and more to computers to help
them to store, share, and search through the information. But bioinformatics
is a tool used by biologists, not a new science in itself. Scientists
use computers for two important tasks, data mining and sharing data.
Biologists also share data on an ever-growing number of databases.
Sites such as GenBank and MedLine have abstracts and sequences for
the researchers to search and use through the web. Medline alone
has 11 million abstracts.
Using a computer to find information from large amounts of data
is called data mining. Data mining is used for such things as testing
hypotheses in silico before scientists test the hypothesis in real
experiments and for searching for similarities within and between
genomes. Though most biologists' interests are far broader than
just sequences of genomes, these techniques are never-the-less useful
tools for finding information.
All this new technology and data means that biology is no longer
the field it used to be. Dr. Stephen Scott from the department of
Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
says, "A strong background in math and computer science is
essential for most, if not all, new biologists today. The sheer
volume of data mandates it." The old techniques used by biologists
have not been forgotten, but changed. For example, in the past,
scientists studying the organelles of a cell would have each studied
a separate organelle. With bioinformatics, the focus switches so
the scientists use the computer to list all the organelles and find
out how they relate to one another.
If a biologist is working on any project that generates protein
structure, microray work, or molecular markers, they need bioinformatics
to help them deal with the immense amount of data. Dr. Michael Fromm,
professor of agronomy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and
director of the Center for Biotechnology says, "Every biology
major will have to get some experience with bioinformatics."
With the change in biology, schools need to keep up. One high school
biology teacher said, "I try to keep up, but when I was in
college, most of this stuff hadn't even been thought of yet."
Since bioinformatics is just a buzzword for a certain tool used
by biologists, finding information on the subject can be difficult,
much less what to incorporate into a classroom. Bioinformatics is
so many things, it is hard to find one aspect to focus on and teach.
Bridging the gap are a number of websites, books, and programs
for both teachers and students to help people better understand
this new technology.
Bioinformatics: The machine learning approach by Baldi and Brunak
uses both simple and complex examples to help the reader understand
bioinformatics and what it can do. The most useful element of the
book is the listing of other resources on various aspects of the
subject.
Some programs have websites on bioinformatics. One of the most
useful is the Biology Student Workbench, an offshoot of the Biology
Workbench used by researchers. The Biology Student Workbench has
curricular material aimed at high school students on bioinformatics,
along with examples of biology teachers using bioinformatics in
the classroom.
Finally, many universities are starting programs to help train
both teachers and students in this new field. The University of
Nebraska-Lincoln is planning an introductory course in bioinformatics
for high school teachers for next summer. They are also looking
to incorporate internships for high school students in the future. |
