Systems Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics Linking Diverse Data and Biological Systems

The current trend in life sciences is towards an explosion of data, which is occurring at every level of life, i.e. at the molecular, cellular, tissue, and organ levels. This data explosion has been caused due to the development of advanced experimental technologies. For example, thousands, or tens of thousands of individual genomes, are being sequenced all over the world. Gene expression data and protein structure and function data have are also being rapidly accumulated. In addition, cellular and organ-level data, such as brain neurological activities and images of organ development are also being obtained. The development of biobanks, which contain both clinical and biological data obtained from human subjects, paves the way for the development of personalized medicine, in which the best therapy is selected for each individual. Such “big data” provides us with an opportunity to understand life more extensively, but to extract as much knowledge as possible, information science must play a crucial role in creating a tailor-made analysis of these diverse types of data. Thus, the role of bioinformatics in biology is now increasing. We are developing methods to analyze biological data based on information theory to understand life systems in order to help people live healthier lives.