Bioinformatics: An Introduction (Computational Biology, 3)

An Introduction to Bioinformatics is intended to be a complete study companion for the advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate student. It is self-contained in the sense that whatever the starting point may be, the reader will gain insight into bioinformatics. Underlying the work is the belief that bioinformatics is a kind of metaphoric lens through which the entire field of biology can be brought into focus, admittedly as yet imperfect, and understood in a unified way. Reflecting the highly incomplete present state of the field, emphasis is placed on the underlying fundamentals and acquisitions of a broad and comprehensive grasp of the field as a whole.

Bioinformatics is interpreted as the application of information science to biology, in which it plays a fundamental and all-pervasive role. This interpretation enables a remarkably unified view of the entire field of biology to be taken and hence offers an excellent entry point into the life sciences for those for whom biology is unfamiliar.

Bioinformatics is interpreted as the application of information science to biology, in which it plays a fundamental and all-pervasive role. The field continues to develop intensively in both academia and commercially, and is highly interdisciplinary. This broad-ranging and thoroughly updated second edition covers new findings while retaining the successful formula of the original text.

Bioinformatics: An Introduction (2nd Edition) is structured into three parts devoted to Information, Biology, and Applications. Every section of the book has been completely revised for currency, and expanded where relevant, to take account of significant new discoveries and realizations of the importance of key concepts. Furthermore, two new chapters provide instruction about algorithms and knowledge representation. Emphases are placed on the underlying fundamentals and on acquisition of a broad and comprehensive grasp of the field as a whole.

Features:

· Provides a solid foundation in, and self-contained introduction to, the field of bioinformatics and its state-of-the-art as it relates to computational biology research

· Offers additional chapters on algorithms and knowledge representation, including text mining [NEW]

· Imparts a thorough grounding of core concepts, enabling the reader to understand contemporary work within an optimal context

· Contains a greatly expanded chapter on interactions and regulatory networks [NEW]

· Includes examples, definitions, problems and a comprehensive and useful bibliography

· Presents new experimental methods, and serves as a springboard for new research [NEW]

· Incorporates discussion of the method of drawing inferences from abstract sequence analysis based on frequency dictionaries

· Contains an extensively revised chapter on medical applications [NEW]

· Emphasizes the underlying fundamentals and acquisition of a broad and comprehensive grasp of the field as a whole

This significantly improved second edition of a successful textbook is intended to be a complete study companion for the advanced undergraduate or graduate student. It is self-contained, bringing together the multiple disciplines necessary for a profound grasp of the field into a coherent whole, thereby allowing the reader to gain much insight into the state-of-the-art of bioinformatics.