What is Bioinformatics all about? As one example, a great challenge facing students trained in Bioinformatics will be to understand the human genome. The human genome is perhaps the world’s greatest cipher: encoded in the sequence of the human genome is the information to build every component in the cells that make up the human body. We have to understand the information encoded in the genome if we are to understand how something like cancer or AIDS can effect human cells, and if we are to have any chance in the search for new drugs to combat these problems.

Scientists from around the world are working together on the human genome project, to get and analyse the entire DNA sequence of the human cell. With the entire DNA sequence available, it will be possible to crack the DNA code and reveal its secrets. We will have an understanding of how healthy cells work, and how diseases can take hold. A freely accessible database, containing the sequence as it comes to hand, is hosted by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. This database is used by scientists all over the world via the internet. The course in Bioinformatics at La Trobe is designed around using this and other databases on the internet, to provide hands-on training as part of the course.

How complicated is the genetic code? The complete human genome will probably consist of more than 4000 million bases of DNA sequence. By comparison, there are about 12 million letters "encoding" all of the information in the unabridged version of Websters English Dictionary. A new breed of scientist, trained in Molecular Biology, Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, is needed to analyse the huge collection of information obtained from the Human Genome Sequencing project and crack aspects of the code that we still don’t understand. Bioinformatics is a science of the 21st century!

Created 3rd August, 1997