PRESENT SCOPE OF BIOINFORMATICS

Bioinformatics has not been a new topic these days as it has evolved into a full fledged scientific discipline over the last decade. The definition of Bioinformatics is not restricted to computational molecular biology and computational structural biology. It now includes comparative genomics, structural genomics, transcriptiomics, Proteomics, cellunomics and metabolic pathway engineering. Product of these fields have direct application in day to day healthcare, medicine, discovery of next generation drugs, development of agricultural products, renewable energy, environmental protection etc. The prospective of Bioinformatics is to identify the useful genes leading to the development of new gene Product, drug discovery and drug development.

Bioinformatics has become a frontline applied science and is of utmost importance to study new biology. The growth in full genomic sequence, structural genomics, proteomics, micro array etc. will be very slow without application of bioinformatics. Infact, usefulness of these areas to solve complex biological problem will be limited without bioinformatics. The main data includes the genomes and proteomes of human and other organisms, 3-D structures and functions of proteins, microarray data, metabolic pathways, cell lines & hybridoma, biodiversity etc.

The sudden growth in the quantitative data in Biology has rendered data capture, data warehousing and data mining as major issues for biotechnologists and biologist. Availability of enomic and other data has resulted in the realization of the inherent biocomplexity issues which call for innovative tools for synthesis of knowledge. The new paradigm, now emerging, is that all the genes will be known in the sense of being resident in database available electronically,and the starting point of biological investigation will be theoretical and scientist will begin with a theoretical assumption and only then they can test the hypothesis. With clear understanding of the biological process at the molecular level, scientist have developed new technique to analyze genes on an industrial scale resulting in a new area of science known as "Genomics".  Information Technology, particularly the internet, is utilized to collect, distribute and access ever-increasing data which are later analyzed with mathematics and statistics-based tools. Bioinformatics has a key role to play in the cutting edge Research & Development areas such as functional genomics, proteomics, protein engineering, pharmacogenomics, discovery of new drugs and vaccines, molecular diagnostic kits, agro-biotechnology etc. This has attracted attention of several companies and entrepreneurs. As a result, a large number of Bioinformatics-based start-up has been launched and the trend is likely to continue. This has necessitated the availability of a large number of formally trained individuals in Bioinformatics. A Bioinformaticians must acquire expertise in the essential multi-disciplinary fields that comprise the core of this new science. Quality research and education in Bioinformatics are vital not only to meet the existing challenges but also to set and accomplish new goals in life science.