Practical Bioinformatics (Nucleic Acids and Molecular Biology)

This book presents applications of bioinformatics tools that experimental research scientists use in "daily practice." Its interdisciplinary approach combines computational and experimental methods to solve scientific problems. The book begins with reviews of computational methods for protein sequence-structure-function analysis, followed by methods that use experimental data obtained in the laboratory to improve functional predictions.

The book is unique in that it bridges the gap between bioinformaticists and molecular biologists, i.e. the developers and the users of computational methods for biological data analysis and in that it presents examples of practical applications of the bioinformatics tools in the "daily practice" of an experimental research scientist.

The book starts with reviews on computational methods for protein sequence-structure-function analysis (sequence studies, structure prediction), followed by methods that explicitly utilize experimental data routinely obtained in the laboratory to improve the functional predictions. The second part comprises a series of examples on how particular applications of different types of bioinformatics methods in combination with experimental studies to validate the hypotheses have led to important scientific discoveries.

Therefore, the book is a guide to application of bioinformatics methods in molecular biology, addressed mainly to researchscientists, postdocs, and advanced graduate students.