Bioinformatics

Citation

Rudall, B.H. (1998), "Bioinformatics", Kybernetes, Vol. 27 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.1998.06727haa.003

Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics

Combining biological and IT research

The UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has detailed its bioinformatics initiative in the publication Impact (No. 19, 1998) which provides an information update on its activities.

It says that important advances combining biological and IT research are being sought in the £4.5 million second phase of its bioinformatics initiative. This is sponsored by the EPSRC and also the Biotechnology Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

Dr Normal Paton of the Bioinformatics Panel is quoted as saying:

Promising early indications from the first phase are showing that the initiative is succeeding in its prime aim of developing successful models of joint activity between biology and computing specialists.

Such collaborations wouldn't happen without the existence of a mechanism like this initiative, because considerable time and effort is required just to establish a shared terminology and goals.

Another view is given by Dr David Pioli, International Bioinformatics Project Leader, who is at Zeneca Pharmaceuticals. He comments that:

From an industrial perspective, the Initiative is providing the first steps in the generation of the right mix of IT and biological skills for the development of a key research discipline that is now vital for our efforts to understand biological processes for both commercial success and the pursuit of knowledge.

An example of the effective collaboration in the first phase of this initiative was the exploitation of recently developed inductive logic programming techniques for analysing protein topology, which involves the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and the UK's York University.

Details of other interesting research which has been fostered by this Initiative are available. For example the UK's Liverpool University's study of cloning as a way of doing computations and Oxford University's (UK) automated analysis of gene-sequence databanks to reveal evolutionary and population processes in areas such as the spread of diseases or status of animal populations.

The key priority areas for the three year second phase of this initiative in the UK include:

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  systems to help predict the function of the protein molecule from a given DNA sequence;

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  new approaches to comparative genome analysis;

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  understanding how IT can meet the new challenge posed by the complexity of biological data;

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  databases that take account of the unstructured or uncomputerised nature of much biological information;

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  novel solutions to quality control in creating and maintaining biological databases.

Some of these priorities incorporate new themes, many of which are already the concern of scientists worldwide and particularly cyberneticians and systemists who have always linked such disciplines to form a trans-disciplinary approach to biological problems.

Biodiversity and ecosystems

One of the priorities in a bioinformatics initiative is the incorporation of such themes as biodiversity and ecosystems.

A workshop held at the Natural History Museum, London, UK, was part of the bioinformatics initiative. The emphasis was on the understanding of biodiversity and ecosystems which was considered to be of vital global importance. This workshop identified a number of opportunities for using IT to support biodiversity and these will be of value not only to UK scientists but also to those involved in this area throughout the world.

Among the potentially valuable research areas highlighted at this event were:

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  developing new conceptual models of how to share in multiple ways, data held in a variety of forms, from physical specimens to computerised records;

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  advancing the still poorly understood techniques of using, maintaining and planning large image databases, including overcoming differences between 2D and 3D images;

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  capturing input involving cursive script recognition;

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  exploiting new technologies such as temporal databases, to record and track species names that could change when new discoveries are made.

All of these areas will undoubtedly be included in research proposals made to the research bodies in the UK and also in many other countries where their importance is recognised.