Medicine, Biomedical Science and Engineering
Biomedical Science and Engineering
Biomedical Science and Engineering Research represents the research activities in the areas of Medicine, Biology, Biochemistry, Chemistry, Physics, Engineering, New Materials, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and Health-related topics. These scientists work to understand the biological principles that govern the function of the human body, to discover the mechanisms of disease, and to find innovative ways to treat or cure disease by developing advanced diagnostic tools or new therapeutic strategies. The increased longevity of humans over the past century can be significantly attributed to advances resulting from Biomedical Sciences Research.
What is Biomedical Informatics?
[Stanford University]: 20th century medicine led to longer life spans, treatments for terminal conditions, and miracle drugs but, concurrently, our new lifestyle created fresh problems. The spread of infectious agents is counted in hours not days or weeks. We need to monitor, diagnose, and treat epidemics exponentially faster. Modern life spans and lifestyles leave us ever more vulnerable to to obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer's and cardiac disease. As our life spans grow longer, the cost of medical care rises disproportionately. Meanwhile, modern molecular biology has given us the tools to probe organisms at the most fundamental level while simultaneously unleashing an avalanche of data which we can no longer analyze with traditional methods. The need to integrate biological data to understand the causes of disease, develop treatments and translate these discoveries into medical practice for a mobile population leads to the need for a global biomedical informatics research program and network.
The interdisciplinary nature of the field is demanding. Significant progress addressing meaningful problems in biomedicine using sophisticated approaches from computer science requires deep training in both areas.
What is Bioinformatics?
[University of Calgary]: As the research field of Bioinformatics is rather young, there are no established definitions of what constitutes "bioinformatics". Here are a few sample definitions, which demonstrate the wide range of bioinformatics research and applications.
Bioinformatics is ...
- Bioinformatics is the science of informatics as applied to biological research. Informatics is the management and analysis of data using advanced computing techniques. Bioinformatics is particularly important as an adjunct to genomics research, because of the large amount of complex data this research generates.
- Bioinformatics is the collection, organization and analysis of large amounts of biological data, using networks of computers and databases.
- Bioinformatics is the process of developing tools and processes to quantify and collect data to study biological systems logically.
- Bioinformatics is the use of computers in solving information problems in the life sciences. It mainly involves the creation of extensive electronic databases on genomes, protein sequences etc. Also involves techniques such as three-dimensional modelling of biomolecules and biological systems.
- Bioinformatics is the use of computers to handle biological information. The term is often used to describe computational molecular biology – the use of computers to store, search and characterize the genetic code of genes, the proteins linked to each gene and their associated functions.
- Bioinformatics is a broad term to describe applications of computer technology and information science to organize, interpret, and predict biological structure and function. Bioinformatics is ususally applied in the context of analyzing DNA sequence data. Biomagnification: a problem associated with the introduction of xenobiotic compounds into the biosphere in which the concentration of the compound increases as it passes up the food chain.
- Bioinformatics is the field of science in which biology, computer science, and information technology merge into a single discipline. ...
- Bioinformatics is the field of biology specializing in developing hardware and software to store and analyze the huge amounts of data being generated by life scientists.
- Bioinformatics is research, development or application of mathematical tools and approaches for expanding the use of biological, medical, behavioral or health data. This includes methods to acquire, store, organize, archive, analyze or visualize data.
- Bioinformatics is the use of computers to collect, analyze and store genomics information.
- Bioinformatics is the use of computers, laboratory robots and software to create, manage and interpret massive sets of complex biological data.
- Bioinformatics is the collection and storage of information about genomics in databases.
- Bioinformatics is the management and analysis of data from biological research.
- Bioinformatics is a scientific discipline that comprises all aspects of the gathering, storing, handling, analysing, interpreting and spreading of biological information. Involves powerful computers and innovative programmes which handle vast amounts of coding information on genes and proteins from genomics programmes. ...
- Bioinformatics is the discipline of obtaining information about genomic or protein sequence data. This may involve similarity searches of databases, comparing your unidentified sequence to the sequences in a database, or making predictions about the sequence based on current knowledge of similar sequences. Databases are frequently made publically available through the Internet, or locally at your institution.
- Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary area at the intersection of biological, computer, and information sciences necessary to manage, process, and understand large amounts of data, for instance from the sequencing of the human genome, or from large databases containing information about plants and animals for use in discovering and developing new drugs.
- Bioinformatics is the use of computers in biological research.
- Bioinformatics is the organisation and use of information on biological and molecular subjects. This includes organising biomolecular databases, managing the quality of data input, getting useful information out of such databases, and integrating information from disparate sources. One application of bioinformatics is to bring together gene-sequence dated with that about the physiological functions of the proteins whose production they simulate. ...
- Bioinformatics is the use of computers and information technology to store and analyze nucleotide and amino acid sequences and related information.
- Bioinformatics is a collective term that designates the use of computers and specialized software to analyze and retrieve data from genomic and scientific databases.
- Bioinformatics is the study of collecting, sorting, and analyzing DNA and protein sequence information using computers and statistical techniques.
- Bioinformatics is the science of managing and analyzing biological data using advanced computing techniques.
- New emerging areas.
Synergy of Bioinformatics and Biomedical Research
- (Luzern, Switzerland - Alvin Wei-Cheng Wong)
The world is in the midst of an information and communication technological revolution that is transforming almost every aspect of our lives. The intersection of information technology and biotechnology has become critically important because of the vast amount of data involved in the study of biology. Bioinformatics is very much a discipline in expansion as evidenced by the convergence of Biology, Computer Science, Information and Communication Technology, Mathematics and Statistics.
Bioinformatics highlights the application of statistics, data mining, artificial intelligence, neural networks, machine learning and natural language processing techniques to computationally difficult problems in molecular biology. It is dedicated to provide researchers the knowledge and skills necessary for the invention of algorithms and the creation of computational systems that facilitate the understanding of biological processes and application of these tools and methods to individuals and communities through public health and prevention programs. Meanwhile, advances in high-throughput biotechnology and novel bioassays at the single-cell level have fundamentally changed the way people study biology. Following the decyphering of human genome at the turn of the century, interplay of bioinformatics and novel biotechnology has brought a new revolution in biomedical research.

