Bioinformatics and genomic medicine

Bioinformatics is a rapidly emerging field of biomedical research. A flood of large-scale genomic and postgenomic data means that many of the challenges in biomedical research are now challenges in computational science. Clinical informatics has long developed methodologies to improve biomedical research and clinical care by integrating experimental and clinical information systems. The informatics revolution in both bioinformatics and clinical informatics will eventually change the current practice of medicine, including diagnostics, therapeutics, and prognostics. Postgenome informatics, powered by high-throughput technologies and genomic-scale databases, is likely to transform our biomedical understanding forever, in much the same way that biochemistry did a generation ago. This paper describes how these technologies will impact biomedical research and clinical care, emphasizing recent advances in biochip-based functional genomics and proteomics. Basic data preprocessing with normalization and filtering, primary pattern analysis, and machine-learning algorithms are discussed. Use of integrative biochip informatics technologies, including multivariate data projection, gene-metabolic pathway mapping, automated biomolecular annotation, text mining of factual and literature databases, and the integrated management of biomolecular databases, are also discussed.