Computational biology - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Computational biology involves the development and application of data-analytical and theoretical methods, mathematical modeling and computational simulation techniques to the study of biological, behavioral, and social systems. The field is widely defined and includes foundations in computer science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

, applied mathematics

Applied mathematics

Applied mathematics is a branch of mathematics that concerns itself with mathematical methods that are typically used in science, engineering, business, and industry. Thus, "applied mathematics" is a mathematical science with specialized knowledge...

, statistics

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

, biochemistry

Biochemistry

Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...

, chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

, biophysics

Biophysics

Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that uses the methods of physical science to study biological systems. Studies included under the branches of biophysics span all levels of biological organization, from the molecular scale to whole organisms and ecosystems...

, molecular biology

Molecular biology

Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...

, genetics

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

, ecology

Ecology

Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...

, evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

, anatomy

Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...

, neuroscience

Neuroscience

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...

, and visualization

Scientific visualization

Scientific visualization is an interdisciplinary branch of science according to Friendly "primarily concerned with the visualization of three-dimensional phenomena , where the emphasis is on realistic renderings of volumes, surfaces, illumination sources, and so forth, perhaps...

Centers/Institutions and leading providers of Computational Biology Resources

National Center for Biotechnology Information
National Center for Biotechnology Information
The National Center for Biotechnology Information is part of the United States National Library of Medicine , a branch of the National Institutes of Health. The NCBI is located in Bethesda, Maryland and was founded in 1988 through legislation sponsored by Senator Claude Pepper...

(NCBI)
European Bioinformatics Institute
European Bioinformatics Institute
The European Bioinformatics Institute is a centre for research and services in bioinformatics, and is part of European Molecular Biology Laboratory...

(EBI)
Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
The Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics is an academic not-for-profit foundation which federates bioinformatics activities throughout Switzerland...

(SIB)
European Molecular Biology Laboratory
European Molecular Biology Laboratory
The European Molecular Biology Laboratory is a molecular biology research institution supported by 20 European countries and Australia as associate member state. EMBL was created in 1974 and is an intergovernmental organisation funded by public research money from its member states...

(EMBL)
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI) or The Sanger
Broad Institute
Broad Institute
The Broad Institute is a genomic medicine research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Although it is independently governed and supported as a 501 nonprofit research organization, the institute is formally affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard...
Whitehead Institute
Whitehead Institute
Founded in 1982, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research and teaching institution located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA....
The Institute for Genomic Research
The Institute for Genomic Research
The Institute for Genomic Research was a non-profit genomics research institute founded in 1992 by Craig Venter in Rockville, Maryland, United States. It is now a part of the J. Craig Venter Institute.-History:...
Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering
Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre
Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre
The Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre or NBIC is a Dutch, government-funded organization, that coordinates all academic work on bioinformatics in the Netherlands...
COSBI
COSBI
The Microsoft Research - University of Trento Centre for Computational and Systems Biology is a no profit research center located in Trentino, Italy. The Center has two office one in Trento and one recently opened in Rovereto, and was constituted on December 6, 2005...

- The Centre for Computational and Systems Biology
T4G Limited - Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Consulting
DLab
DLab
DLab has been the first italian videogame school that had three editions in Arezzo, Florence and Ferrara.Founded in 2002 by Fabio Barzagli and conducted with his friend Bernardo Innocenti , Dlab has been collaborating and organizing courses with many partners like Cooperativa Sociale Electra,...

- Computational Biology Lab (Chile)
Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics
Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics
The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics is a biology research institute located in Dresden, Germany. It was founded in 1998 and was fully operational in 2000...

(MPI-CBG)

Professional Societies and Relevant Organizations

International Society for Computational Biology
bioinformatics.org

Relevant Journals

(BMC) Algorithms for Molecular Biology
Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics (journal)
Bioinformatics is a peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing original research and software in computational biology. It is the official journal of the International Society for Computational Biology, together with PLoS Computational Biology. Authors can pay extra for open access and are allowed...

(formerly Computer Applications in the Biosciences)
BMC Bioinformatics
BMC Bioinformatics
BMC Bioinformatics is an online open access scientific journal that publishes original, peer-reviewed research in bioinformatics. The journal is part of a series of BMC journals published by the UK-based publisher BioMed Central....
BMC Genomics
BMC Systems Biology
BMC Systems Biology
BMC Systems Biology is an open access peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers research in systems biology. The journal was established in 2007 and is published by BioMed Central....
Genome Biology
Genome Biology
Genome Biology is an online partially open access scientific journal that publishes original, peer-reviewed research in genomics. It is published by BioMed Central , and is currently the BMC journal with the highest impact factor...
Genomics
Genomics (journal)
Genomics is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in genomics, publishing articles on topics such as comparative genomics, functional genomics, association studies, regulatory DNA elements and genetics on a genome-wide scale. The journal was launched in September 1987.-Indexing:Genomics is indexed...
Genome Research
Genome Research
Genome Research is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. The focus of the journal is on genome-wide studies in any organism, including single gene studies that are placed in a genomic context. This scope includes both experimental and computational...
Database (journal)
Database (Journal)
Database is an online open access scientific journal that publishes peer-reviewed research for the presentation of novel ideas in database research and biocuration....
Journal of Computational Biology
Journal of Computational Biology
The Journal of Computational Biology is a peer-reviewed scientific journal dedicated to computational biology and bioinformatics. The journal is published in 10 printed issues per year by Mary Ann Liebert....
Nature Methods
Nature Methods
Nature Methods is an academic journal covering new techniques for science. It began in 2004. It is published monthly by the Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd...
Nucleic Acids Research
Nucleic Acids Research
Nucleic Acids Research is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Oxford University Press. It covers research on nucleic acids, such as DNA and RNA, and related work. Some of its content is available under an open access license. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal's 2010...
PLoS Computational Biology
PLoS Computational Biology
PLoS Computational Biology is a peer-reviewed computational biology journal established in 2005 and published by the nonprofit Public Library of Science in association with the International Society for Computational Biology. Its Editor in Chief is Philip Bourne...
PLoS ONE
PLoS ONE
PLoS ONE is an open access peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science since 2006. It covers primary research from any discipline within science and medicine. All submissions go through an internal and external pre-publication peer review but are not excluded on the...
Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology
Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology
Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology is an online peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers the application of statistical ideas to problems arising from computational biology. It is published by the Berkeley Electronic Press and is the #5 ranked statistics journal in the...

Notable Conferences in Computational Biology

Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology
Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology
Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology is a scientific meeting on the subjects of bioinformatics and computational biology organized by the International Society for Computational Biology . Its principal focus is on the development and application of advanced computational methods for...

(ISMB)
European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB)
Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing
Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing
The Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing is an international, multidisciplinary scientific meeting held annually since 1996. The purpose of this conference is for the presentation and discussion of current research in the theory and application of computational methods in problems of biological...

(PSB)
International Conference on Research in Computational Molecular Biology (RECOMB)

Notable Bioinformatics/Computational Biology Databases

Ensembl
Ensembl
Ensembl is a joint scientific project between the European Bioinformatics Institute and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, which was launched in 1999 in response to the imminent completion of the Human Genome Project...
UCSC Genome Browser
UCSC Genome Browser
The University of California, Santa Cruz is an up-to-date source for genome sequence data from a variety of vertebrate and invertebrate species and major model organisms, integrated with a large collection of aligned annotations...
InterPro
InterPro
InterPro is a database of protein families, domains and functional sites in which identifiable features found in known proteins can be applied to new protein sequences in order to functionally characterise them....
Pfam
Pfam
Pfam is a database of protein families that includes their annotations and multiple sequence alignments generated using hidden Markov models.- Features :For each family in Pfam one can:* Look at multiple alignments* View protein domain architectures...
OMIM
Superfamily
Superfamily
The term superfamily is used to describe several different concepts in different scientific fields:* Superfamily and Superfamily : a level of biological classification; redirects to Taxonomic rank...
CATH
CATH
The CATH Protein Structure Classification is a semi-automatic, hierarchical classification of protein domains published in 1997 by Christine Orengo, Janet Thornton and their colleagues....
SCOP
SCOP
SCOP may refer to:* Structural Classification of Proteins* Suprachiasmatic nucleus circadian oscillatory protein, a member of the leucine-rich repeat protein family* Société coopérative, a type of corporation in France...
Protein Data Bank
Protein Data Bank
The Protein Data Bank is a repository for the 3-D structural data of large biological molecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids....
DECIPHER
DECIPHER
DECIPHER is a web-based resource and database of array comparative genomic hybridization data from analysis of patient DNA. It documents submicroscopic chromosome abnormalities, including microdeletions and duplications, from over 6000 patients and maps them to the human genome using the Ensembl...

Computational biomodeling

Computational biomodeling, a field concerned with building computer models of biological systems.

Computational genomics

Computational genomics, a field within genomics

Genomics

Genomics is a discipline in genetics concerning the study of the genomes of organisms. The field includes intensive efforts to determine the entire DNA sequence of organisms and fine-scale genetic mapping efforts. The field also includes studies of intragenomic phenomena such as heterosis,...

which studies the genome

Genome

In modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....

s of cells and organisms. High-throughput genome sequencing produces lots of data, which requires extensive post-processing (sequence assembly

Sequence assembly

In bioinformatics, sequence assembly refers to aligning and merging fragments of a much longer DNA sequence in order to reconstruct the original sequence. This is needed as DNA sequencing technology cannot read whole genomes in one go, but rather reads small pieces of between 20 and 1000 bases,...

) and uses DNA microarray

DNA microarray

A DNA microarray is a collection of microscopic DNA spots attached to a solid surface. Scientists use DNA microarrays to measure the expression levels of large numbers of genes simultaneously or to genotype multiple regions of a genome...

technologies to perform statistical analyses on the genes expressed in individual cell types. This can help find genes of interest for certain diseases or conditions. This field also studies the mathematical foundations

DNA sequencing theory

DNA sequencing theory is the broad body of work that attempts to lay analytical foundations for DNA sequencing. The practical aspects revolve around designing and optimizing sequencing projects , predicting project performance, troubleshooting experimental results, characterizing factors such as...

of sequencing. Advances in many areas of genomics research are heavily rooted in engineering technology, from the capillary electrophoresis units used in large-scale DNA sequencing projects.

Computational neuroscience

Computational neuroscience is the study of brain function in terms of the information processing properties of the structures that make up the nervous system.

Computational biology vs. Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics and computational biology are rooted in life sciences as well as computer and information sciences and technologies. Both of these interdisciplinary approaches draw from specific disciplines such as mathematics, physics, statistics, computer science and engineering, biology, and behavioral science. Bioinformatics and computational biology each maintain close interactions with life sciences to realize their full potential. Bioinformatics applies principles of information sciences and technologies to make the vast, diverse, and complex life sciences data more understandable and useful. Computational biology uses mathematical and computational approaches to address theoretical and experimental questions in biology. Although bioinformatics and computational biology are distinct, there is also significant overlap and activity at their interface.

Another opinion is that Bioinformatics relates to anything to do with analysis, visualization and management of biological sequences, while Computational Biology refers to that plus everything else that involves computers in the solving of biological problems.