Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary area of the life sciences that combines information technology with biology. The applications of bioinformatics are the analysis of molecular sequences and genomics data.
The goal of bioinformatics is to combine:
- Various disciplines of life science
- To create methodologies and tools
- Analyze massive amounts of biological data
- Store, organize, systematize and visualize the analysis of data
- Finally, annotate, comprehend, and interpret the entire data.
Also, Bioinformatics uses modern computer science in:
- molecular modelling/algorithms
- cloud computing, mathematics
- statistics
- pattern recognition
- machine learning
- simulation
- reconstruction
- iterative techniques
Being an interdisciplinary field of study, it incorporates various facets of Computer Science, Statistics, and Biology. This is done to develop software applications for understanding biological data like DNA sequencing, protein analysis, evolutionary genetics, etc. if you have any doubt regarding any topic, you can take professional Bioinformatics Assignment Help online in the USA. The online tutors will clear all your doubts.
Bioinformatics has various uses in Pharmacy, Medicine and Healthcare. So, in this blog, we will explore more such exciting applications of Bioinformatics!
Bioinformatics and the Pharmaceutical Industry
The pharmaceutical industry utilizes bioinformatics during the drug discovery and process of development.
Figure: Stages of drug discovery and developmental process
Identification and validation of Drug Leads and Targets
Pharmaceutical firms develop new medications for the treatment of diseases. Identifying the drug target is the initial step in developing a new drug. This drug, which is a protein or gene, is linked to the illness that must be treated.
Once identified, drug targets and leads must be validated. You must show that the drug lead impacts the target molecule in a way that results in a beneficial therapeutic effect in order to accomplish this.
Identifying Drug Targets and Leads with the Help of Bioinformatics
Various bioinformatics techniques are used to find pharmacological targets and leads. For example, studies of the data produced by High-Throughput Screens (HTS) can be used to find a drug lead. Meanwhile, analysis of data from preclinical studies employing diseased human tissues, animal models, and cell lines can pinpoint therapeutic targets and leads.
Validating Drug Targets and Leads with the Help of Bioinformatics
Comprehensive studies of CRISPR screen data or gene expression data obtained from models in which the target has been knocked out or down can be used to support target validation.
Gene expression data from treated and untreated models of the identified lead can be compared to establish lead validation. This lead method of action is explained by Bioinformatics Assignment Help experts online to their students.
Clinical Stage
In the clinical phase of drug development, researchers give the medication to volunteers who will act as human subjects in clinical trials. Clinical trials have three phases, each with a distinct goal.
- Phase 1 studies’ main objective is to examine a drug’s safety in healthy volunteers. Phase 1 trials may also evaluate a component of the efficacy of the treatment and determine the maximum dose the human body can tolerate.
- Phase 2 studies evaluate the medication in the target patient group.
- Phase 3 studies are the last step. In these studies, the experimental drug is put up against currently marketed medications for the same illness. The trial drug must outperform the existing medications to pass a Phase 3 study.
Benefits of the pharmaceutical industry at the clinical stage from Bioinformatics
Trials in phases 1, 2, and 3 frequently provide data in enormous quantities. Bioinformatics can help with this. Data from primary outcomes and any of the following data categories that may be produced during clinical trials can both be subjected to bioinformatics analyses:
- Demographic Data
- Genotype Data
- Gene Expression Data
- Clinical Chemistry
- Clinical Phenotypes
- Immunohistochemistry (IHC)
- Cytokine profiling
- Flow Cytometry
- Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing
- Haematological tests
- Cytokine profiling
- Pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic measurements
The significant insights in the data are all revealed when bioinformatics methods are applied to clinical trial data. These realizations can then guide subsequent actions and provide pharmaceutical research’s highest possible financial return.
Bioinformatics and medicine
Medicine has found bioinformatics to be highly beneficial. For example, the human genome’s full sequencing has made it possible to identify the genetic cause of numerous diseases. Gene therapy, customized medicine, preventative medicine, and drug development are some of its applications.
- Drug discovery
At the moment, infectious diseases constitute the leading cause of death for children and young people worldwide. Over 13 million fatalities each year are attributed to infectious diseases, according to the WHO.
Most infectious disease mortality occurs in developing nations. This is mostly due to the lack of access to affordable medications and the high price of those that are available.
The development of affordable and effective medications for a disease is one of the major issues that can be resolved by rational drug design employing bioinformatics.
A logical and structure-based approach to medication design has replaced the trial-and-error method of drug discovery in the pharmaceutical business. The time and expense required to generate efficient pharmacological agents can be decreased using an effective and dependable drug design approach.
On the basis of molecular modelling and simulation, the processes of drug target discovery and drug candidate screening can be hastened, and safer/more effective medications can be developed.
- Personalized medicine
Personalized medicine is a type of healthcare that is created specifically for each individual based on their genetic makeup.
A patient’s genetic makeup can help the doctor forecast a patient’s propensity for developing a particular condition and help him, or her choose the right drug and dosage to minimize adverse effects. It is used in the treatment of HIV, diabetes-related diseases, and personalized cancer medicine.
In personalized medicine, bioinformatics is used to analyze data from genome sequencing or microarray gene expression studies in search of mutations or gene variants that could change a patient’s prognosis for their disease or impact how they respond to a particular therapy.
- Preventive medicine
The focus of preventive medicine is on the well-being of specific populations, communities, and individuals. To comprehend the patterns and causes of health and disease, it employs a variety of research techniques, such as biostatistics, bioinformatics, and epidemiology. This knowledge is then transformed into programs that aim to avoid illness, disability, and death.
Screening babies for diseases like genetic problems or metabolic disorders that are curable but not clinically obvious in the newborn period is an example of preventative medicine.
Researchers examine genomes, proteomics, and metabolomics data for potential disease biomarkers using bioinformatics methods in order to develop such screening tests to detect the disease at an early stage.
- Gene therapy
The process of replacing dysfunctional genes in the patient’s cells with healthy ones is known as gene therapy. However, gene therapy has not been extensively adopted because each person’s genetic profile is unique and creating a general gene treatment procedure is highly challenging.
By taking into account each person’s genetic profile, bioinformatics may be able to identify the ideal gene target site for them. This can lessen the possibility of unwanted side effects.
Bioinformatics and healthcare
AI can be applied to bioinformatics to advance clinical investigation and analysis that may lead to improvements in patient care.
Wearable technology is one instance of how AI can be combined with bioinformatics. Many forms of wearable technology, such as fitness trackers or smart jewellery like watches or rings, are already well-known to consumers, who use the information they gather for their own purposes.
Bioinformaticians can research, forecast, and get ready for large-scale phenomena like pandemics when they use artificial intelligence (AI) to evaluate the data produced by millions of wearable technology devices.
Here is an example.
At the conference of AI for healthcare at the time of Covid 19, Dr. Eric Topol proposed that wearable technology can play an important role in identifying symptoms of Covid 19 in people.
AI and bioinformatics will be used more and more in healthcare, as well as in tracking and monitoring public health, at a time when COVID-19 testing is crucial and essential.
The need to concentrate on population health has never been higher. In the years to come, the importance and necessity of being able to identify and evaluate health trends as well as develop future treatments utilizing AI and bioinformatics will only increase.
In fact, the explosion of healthcare data is expected to cause the market for AI in healthcare to grow from $2.1 to $36.1 billion by 2025. Moreover, Healthcare data has multiplied 20-fold just in the last seven years, making expertise in this field extremely sought-after.
Finally,
Drug discovery, veterinary science, crop enhancement, forensics, and many other fields have benefited from the use of bioinformatics methods. There are several applications for various bioinformatics tools. Sequence analysis, molecular modelling, molecular dynamics, and other uses of bioinformatics. The names of the bioinformatics tools for various purposes are listed below:
- geWorkbench
- BLAST
- BioPerl
- InterMine
- Linux Biojava Bioinformatics Tool
- Tool for IGV Genomic Sequencing
- GROMACS
- Workbench for taverns
- Citral Omega
As a result, bioinformatics has many uses and is used in many different fields. Do you intend to attend foreign universities for higher study in this subject? Then, let the professionals at Bioinformatics Assignment Help assist you in getting your academic career off to a good start.