Bioinformatics/Glossary

There are a number of existing Wikipedia articles on bioinformatics and computational biology; the article on biostatistics is also helpful.

There is some disagreement on the proper uses of the following terms. The meanings intended by the author are summarized below:


 * Bio- : Etymology: From the Ancient Greek βίος (bios), “‘life’”.


 * Bioinformatics : The science of the treatment of biological information, especially large quantities of biological information.


 * Biological System : A group of organs or organelles that work together to perform a certain task. (see [| Wikipedia Biological System])


 * Biological Systems : A group of biological systems that work together producing an organism ie a living being, ie life


 * Biostatistics : The sub-discipline of Bioinformatics concerned with probability and hypothesis validation on biological data. The term Biostatistics predates "Bioinformatics" considerably.


 * Computational Biology : Computationally-intensive methods to treat biological information. Generally this implies treatment of large amounts of data, but not always.


 * Control System : A device or set of devices to manage, command, direct or regulate the behavior of other devices or systems.


 * Control Systems of Biological Systems : A group of factors working to keep a group of organs balanced and still flexible enough to respond to hostile and variable environments


 * Functional Genomics : The study of functional information derived from entire proteomes; alternatively, high-throughput study of protein functions in general.


 * Genome : All the genes derived from one organism make up a single genome.


 * Genomics : The study of information derived from entire genomes; alternatively, high throughput study of genes in general.


 * Informatics : The science of information, the practice of information processing, and the engineering of information systems.


 * Organism : Any living system (such as animal, plant, fungus, or micro-organism). In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homeostasis as a stable whole


 * Proteome : All the proteins coded for by the sequences of a single genome, including their structures and functions, make a single proteome.


 * Structural Genomics : The study of structural information derived from entire proteomes; alternatively, high-throughput study of protein structures in general.