Bioinformatics for Biologists

Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 9/15/2011
EAN 9781107648876, ISBN10: 1107648874

Paperback, 394 pages, 24.6 x 18.8 x 1.8 cm
Language: English

The computational education of biologists is changing to prepare students for facing the complex datasets of today's life science research. In this concise textbook, the authors' fresh pedagogical approaches lead biology students from first principles towards computational thinking. A team of renowned bioinformaticians take innovative routes to introduce computational ideas in the context of real biological problems. Intuitive explanations promote deep understanding, using little mathematical formalism. Self-contained chapters show how computational procedures are developed and applied to central topics in bioinformatics and genomics, such as the genetic basis of disease, genome evolution or the tree of life concept. Using bioinformatic resources requires a basic understanding of what bioinformatics is and what it can do. Rather than just presenting tools, the authors - each a leading scientist - engage the students' problem-solving skills, preparing them to meet the computational challenges of their life science careers.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction Pavel Pevzner and Ron Shamir
Part I. Genomes
1. Identifying the genetic basis of disease Vineet Bafna
2. Pattern identification in a haplotype block Kun-Mao Chao
3. Genome reconstruction
a puzzle with a billion pieces Phillip Compeau and Pavel Pevzner
4. Dynamic programming
one algorithmic key for many biological locks Mikhail Gelfand
5. Measuring evidence
who's your daddy? Christopher Lee
Part II. Gene Transcription and Regulation
6. How do replication and transcription change genomes? Andrei Grigoriev
7. Modeling regulatory motifs Sridhar Hannenhalli
8. How does influenza virus jump from animals to humans? Haixu Tang
Part III. Evolution
9. Genome rearrangements Steffen Heber and Brian Howard
10. The crisis of the tree of life concept and the search for order in the phylogenetic forest Eugene Koonin, Pere Puigbò and Yuri Wolf
11. Reconstructing the history of large-scale genomic changes
biological questions and computational challenges Jian Ma
Part IV. Phylogeny
12. Figs, wasps, gophers, and lice
a computational exploration of coevolution Ran Libeskind-Hadas
13. Big cat phylogenies, consensus trees, and computational thinking Seung-Jil Sun and Tiffani Williams
14. Algorithm design for large-scale phylogeny Tandy Warnow
Part V. Regulatory Networks
15. Biological networks uncover evolution, disease, and gene functions Nataša Pržulj
16. Regulatory network inference Russell Schwartz
Index.