From Sequence to Function: An Introduction to Bioinformatics

Dr. Mark D'Souza

Computation Institute, University of Chicago

Mathematics & Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory

There are currently upwards of 170 billion base pairs of DNA sequence available publicly. Genomic sequence data has been increasing exponentially, doubling every 18 months. This is just one of a number of classes of genomic data, there is also a vast and growing amount of metabolic and experimental data. Managing and interpreting this growing mass of data requires the combined effort and input from Biology, Computer Science, Mathematics and other scientific fields. Bioinformatics is the application of information management, analytical and computational methods to biological data. This seminar will give an introduction to the field of Bioinformatics, using the problem of assignment of function to protein sequence as an example.