Sector
Rapid progression of various diseases creating more scope for gene analysis to detect and classify the disease and to improve medical diagnosis.
Bioinformatics tools are used to study genes or proteins that are associated in the pathogen and pathogenesis of the disease.
Today by combining the clinical data with genetic data survival risk of patients are predicted.
Drug Development
Bioinformatics has a visible impact in drug discovery and drug development. Acquiring deep knowledge on association of gene with disease using computational tools, new disease specific drugs are discovered and validated rapidly [4].
Bioinformatics tools are also very powerful and effective in analysis, prediction and interpretation of clinical and preclinical findings.
Procuring more understanding by conducting research in this field will assist to develop drugs that attack the cause not merely the symptoms.
Molecular Medicine
With the study of genetic mechanisms we can hunt for genes that are directly related with different diseases and resulting
knowledge will enable better treatment, speed up development of drugs and diagnostic tools to measure a person’s vulnerability to harmful diseases.
With the application of bioinformatics tools we can identify the molecular and genetic error associated with different disease. We can also understand the molecular structures and develop molecular interventions to correct them.
Preventative Medicine
Study of human genes with use of bioinformatics tools allow us to find the cause of a disease.
Development of preventive medicine will help avert and avoid the disease before it causes a disease.
Gene Therapy
Gene therapy is the approach to deal with gene expression of a person. This method is used to alter the gene expression of an individual to treat, cure and prevent disease.
Waste Clean-Up
With the use of bioinformatics tools Bacterium like Deinococcus radiodurans is identified which help cleaning the waste [4, 5].
These organisms are efficient in cleaning up toxic chemicals and harmful radiations of waste sites.
Study of Climate Change
Excessive use of fossil fuels for obtaining energy contributes to high emission of harmful carbon dioxide gas, which is a major cause of global climate change.
The study of different microorganisms that uses carbon dioxide as their leading source will help to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
Biotechnology
In bioinformatics, biotechnology is used to identify organisms and micro-organisms which can be useful in dairy industries and food manufacturing companies. For example micro-organisms like Lactococcus lactis involved in dairy industry for the manufacture of buttermilk, cheese, yogurt, etc.
Crop Improvement
Study of bioinformatics involves study of DNA, RNA sequence, prediction of function and structure of protein of plant genomes.
Genetic Knowledge of plants has shown the organisation of genes of plants and this knowledge is used for producing improved insect resistant crops and makes plants more productive and the protein model helps to improve genes of plants.
Insect Resistance
Soil-borne bacteria like Bacillus thuringiensis makes proteins that are toxic to some insects.
Genes of these soil-borne bacteria have been studied and successfully transferred to cotton, potatoes and maize to control many serious pests [4, 5].
These bacteria facilitate to repel insect attack so the practice of using insecticides in plants can be reduced with the study of the protein produced by them and hence the nutritional content of the plants can be improved.
Development of Drought Resistance Varieties
Genetic knowledge of plants helps to develop varieties of crops with a great tolerance of soil alkalinity, iron toxicities and have the capability to grow in reduced water condition. This also allows crop development in substandard soil regions to create more agricultural land and to increase crop production [7].
Comparative Studies
To understand the functions of genes, inherited diseases mechanisms and evolution of species we need to analyze and compare the genetic substance of different species.
Bioinformatics tools are also applied to make comparisons between the numbers, locations and biochemical functions of genes in different organisms [5, 6].
There are a wide range of applications of bioinformatics in the domain of diagnosis, medicine, agriculture, biotechnology. Studying and using different tools of bioinformatics will allow researchers to extend knowledge far more efficiently and effectively through data analysis and experiments. This will fasten the major discoveries more accurately.
3.1.3 Issues with Bioinformatics
Section 3.1.1 discusses different applications of bioinformatics. These applications come with many challenges when it is associated with some issues related with the data or the devices used for collection or analysis of it. So addressing and analysing these issues are required for proper execution and effective result. This subsections below discusses different issues that are faced when the biological study is conducted.
3.1.3.1 Issues Related to Structure
Study of DNA and protein includes problems like protein structure prediction as they are represented in 3D data, so structure prediction, alignment and analysis become a difficult task. The prediction of protein three-dimensional structure from sequence can be solved with the application of ANN.
Most of the biological networks such as protein–protein interaction networks, gene regulatory network, etc. are difficult to interpret and build due to the complexity of biological system. So using graph-theoretic methods these massive range of networks are displayed in graphs which makes classification very difficult using traditional methods.
3.1.3.2 Sequence Analysis
Classification of RNA, Protein Sequence and DNA become a challenge because of difference and similarity of many organisms.
Issue
