Job Opportunity in Bioinformatics - Term Paper Example

Job Opportunity in Bioinformatics Bioinformatics is an indispensable, interdisciplinary science that deals with the development of software and tools for studying and understanding biological data. It involves the fields of computer science, statistics, mathematics, and engineering. It combines these areas to obtain biological data, analyze it and come up with new biological information. It then uses the biological information to create universal perspective that the entire humanity can subscribe to. Bioinformatics uses information storage and data analysis in computer science to deal with the massive amounts of information on the decoded genes (Levine 3). Bioinformatics is, therefore, an extensive field with many job opportunities both directly and indirectly linked to it. This paper presents some of the employment opportunities. The first job opportunity that bioinformatics presents are sequence analysis. Sequence analysis was first done in 1977 when the phage Φ-X174 was sequenced. The job involves decoding DNA sequences and storing the information in databases. The sequence analysts then analyze the data to find out the genes that code for proteins and other structures in the sample. This has led to the discovery that comparing the genes within organisms of the same species, or different species reveal similarities in the functionality of their proteins. However, the growing amounts of data, means that it is no longer possible to analyze DNA sequences manually. Sequence analysts have, therefore, developed software that search the genome of millions of organisms, consisting of billions of nucleotides in databases (Levine 4). The programs can make up for mutations in DNA sequences, so that they can determine related but identical sequences. A variation of the sequence alignment is used in the sequencing process. The shotgun sequencing technique gives the series of thousands of small DNA structures. It produces the sequence data quickly but does not assemble the fragments quite fast for complicated genomes. Another job area of bioinformatics in sequence analysis is in the automatic search for genes and regulatory sequences within genomes. However, nucleotides found in genomes are not all genes. Bioinformatics is vital in bridging the gap between genome and proteome projects like in using DNA sequences for identifying proteins (Levine 5). Bioinformatics knowledge is required for a job in genome annotation. Genome annotation is the process of marking the genes and the other biological features in DNA sequences. Owen White designed the first genome annotation software system in 1995 that was used to sequence and analyze the first genome of a free living organism to be decoded. The next job opportunity that bioinformatics presents are sequence analysis. This career was developed in 1977 when the phage Φ-X174 was sequenced. The job involves decoding DNA sequences and storing the information in databases. The sequence analysts then analyze the data to find out the genes that code for proteins and other structures (Levine 4). Bioinformatics knowledge is required for a job in genome annotation. Genome annotation is the process of marking the genes and the other biological features in DNA sequences. Owen White developed the first genome annotation software that was used in the annotation of the bacterium Haemophilus influenza. Genome annotations involve building software system that find the genes, transfer RNA, and other structures to make the initial assignments of function to these genes. Bioinformatics have continually modified the programs since then (Levine 6). Computational evolutionary biology is also another job area for bioinformatics. It involves the study of the origin of the species, together with the changes in their structures over the time they have been in existence. Bioinformatics helps the researchers to trace the path of evolution of many organisms by quantifying changes in their DNA other than by the physical taxonomy or physiological observations only. It also enables them perform a comparative analysis of entire genomes thus enabling the study of complex evolutionary events, like gene duplication, to forecast the behavior of the system for a long period. This helps bioinformatics professionals understand the structure of the human DNA and predict its future (Levine 6) Bioinformatics information also presents job opportunities in the analysis of gene expression. This field involves measuring mRNA levels with several techniques that include microarrays, expressed cDNA sequence tag (EST) sequencing, serial analysis of gene expression, or the numerous applications of multiplexed in-situ hybridization. These methods are noise prone hence bioinformatics involves research to developing statistical instruments to isolate the desired signal from noise (Levine). These filed involves the study of genes that appear to be disordered. Such genes cause ailments such as cancer. A comparison between the microarray data from cancerous epithelial cells is done to that of normal cells to pin point the transcripts that are up-regulated and down-regulated in the cancer cells (Levine 7). Bioinformatics knowledge presents a job opportunity in the analysis of regulation. Regulation involves the orchestration of the events that start from extracellular cell signal and eventually resulting in a rise or drop in the activity of protein molecules. Bioinformatics experts apply procedures to determine the steps involved in this process. This includes promoter analysis that is vital in the revelation and study of sequence motifs in the genomic region that surrounds the coding regions of genes. They impact how the region is transcribed into mRNA. This expression data is used to predict gene regulation by comparing the microarray data from numerous of states of the organism to produce a hypothesis of the genes (Levine 9). Bioinformatics knowledge can also lead to a career in the analysis of protein expression. The protein microarrays and high throughput (HT) mass spectrometry (MS) gives the idea of the proteins present in the samples. Bioinformatics knowledge is vital to understanding protein microarray and HT MS data (Levine 6). Analysis of mutations in cancer involves the massive sequencing efforts to determine point mutations in multiple of cancer genes. There is a large amount of data produced that necessitates automated systems to read them automatically and perform a comparison of the typical sequence of the human genome. Strategies such as the Oligonucleotide microarrays are used to determine chromosal gains and losses in cancer. Bioinformatics professionals change the protein sequence at set locations and calculate the expected changes in the bioactivity mutations (Levine 5). Bioinformatics presents yet another job opportunity in the area of comparative genomics. This involves genome analysis to ascertain the relationship between genes and the other genomic structures in organisms of different species. This information is then presented in maps. The maps are then used to predict the path of evolution the organism followed to achieve its current structure other that of the other organism. It has then been discovered that several evolutionary events have helped shape this difference. Point mutations, for example, have an impact on individual nucleotides (Levine 13). Bioinformatics also presents job opportunity in measuring of biodiversity. Biodiversity in this aspect is defined as the total genomic complement of a certain environment, from the organism that exist there, regardless of the type of organisms that live in the environment and the environment type. The organism’s names are stored in databases where there descriptions; distributions and characteristics are stored. Bioinformatics professionals then develop individual software for accessing the databases, retrieving the information, visualizing it, analyzing it and pass it to humans. This software model the population dynamics to determine the total genetic health of the breeding pool of the organisms. This field has helped in the understanding of how the entire DNA sequences of the endangered species of animals can be preserved for future use. This means that even though these organisms can become extinct their DNA sequences will forever remain with us (Levine 13). Bioinformatics is an essential form of science that enhances our daily lives. It also provides numerous job opportunities for enthusiasts. References Levine, Alaina G. . "An Explosion Of Bioinformatics Careers." 2014. Career Magazine. 7 December 2014. . Read More