Biology Direct invites researchers to contribute to a new Collection of bioinformatics articles with impact for life science data analysis, biological theory, and biotechnological/medical application.
Roughly 75 years into the "information age", we find ourselves entering into a new era of "big data" where dramatically growing data acquisition is not yet accompanied by adequate means to transform this data into insightful information and scientific discovery. Nowhere has this had a greater impact than within the realm of biology and medicine where recent technological innovations have permitted more robust and entirely new modes of data collection at every scale of organizational complexity from genomics to cell biology and ecology. Advances in bioinformatics can support the development of novel bioengineering applications which require understanding emergent phenomena among new data types previously unseen. This, in turn, can support the development of improved data-analytic methodology. Lastly, but of fundamental importance, this process reveals highly-conserved patterns across disparate experimental systems, proving the raw materials for new theory.
This transformation of data into scientific discovery is not an automatic process and the growth of biological datasets is far outstripping the pace of interpretation as insufficiently analyzed datasets from past decades and many still unknown genome functions certify. This Collection aims to highlight recent advances and ongoing efforts to narrow this gap.
We welcome interdisciplinary research and perspectives that demonstrate innovative approaches to address biological and medical challenges using computational techniques that support new engineering applications, analytic-method development, or mathematical foundations of biological systems.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
• Genomic Data Analysis
• Protein Structure Prediction
• Mathematical Modeling
• Drug Discovery and Development
• Disease Biomarker Identification
• Personalized Medicine
