Book description
Were you always curious about biology but were afraid to sit through
long hours of dense reading? Did you like the subject when you were in
high school but had other plans after you graduated? Now you can explore
the human genome and analyze DNA without ever leaving your desktop!
Bioinformatics For Dummies is packed with valuable information
that introduces you to this exciting new discipline. This
easy-to-follow guide leads you step by step through every
bioinformatics task that can be done over the Internet. Forget long
equations, computer-geek gibberish, and installing bulky programs that
slow down your computer. You'll be amazed at all the things you can
accomplish just by logging on and following these trusty directions.
You get the tools you need to:
- Analyze all types of sequences
- Use all types of databases
- Work with DNA and protein sequences
- Conduct similarity searches
- Build a multiple sequence alignment
- Edit and publish alignments
- Visualize protein 3-D structures
- Construct phylogenetic trees
This up-to-date second edition includes newly created and popular
databases and Internet programs as well as multiple new genomes. It
provides tips for using servers and places to seek resources to find
out about what's going on in the bioinformatics world.
Bioinformatics For Dummies will show you how to get the most
out of your PC and the right Web tools so you'll be searching
databases and analyzing sequences like a pro!
Jean-Michel Claverie is Professor of Medical
Bioinformatics at the School of Medicine of the Université de la
Méditerranée, and a consultant in genomics and bioinformatics. He is
the founder and current head of the Structural & Genomic
Information Laboratory, located in Marseilles, a sunny city on the
Mediterranean coast of France. Using science as a pretext to travel,
Jean-Michel has held positions in Paris (France), Sherbrooke (PQ,
Canada), the Salk Institute (La Jolla, CA), the Pasteur Institute
(Paris), Incyte pharmaceutical (Palo Alto, CA); and the National
Center for Biotechnology Information (Bethesda, MD). He has used
computers in biology since the early days -- his Ph. D. work involved
modeling biochemical reactions by programming an 8K Honeywell 516
computer right from the console switches! Although he has no clear
recollection of it, he has been credited with introducing the French
word “bioinformatique” in the late eighties, before involuntarily
coining the catchy “bioinformatics” by mistranslating it while giving
a talk in English!
Jean-Michel's current research interests are
in microbial and structural genomics, and in the development of
bioinformatic methods for the prediction of gene function. He is the
author or coauthor of more than 150 scientific publications, and a
member of numerous international review panels and scientific
councils. In his spare time, he enjoys the relaxed pace of life in
Marseilles, with his wife Chantal and their two sons, Nicholas and Raphael.
Cedric Notredame is a researcher at the French National Centre
for Scientific Research. Cedric has used and abused the facilities
offered by science to wander around Europe. After a Ph. D. at EMBL
(Heidelberg, Germany) and at the European Bioinformatics Institute
(Cambridge, UK) under the supervision of Des Higgins (yes, the
ClustalW guy), Cedric did a post-doc at the National Institute of
Medical Research (London, UK), in the lab of Willie Taylor and under
the supervision of Jaap Heringa. He then did a post-doc in Lausanne
(Switzerland) with Phillip Bucher, and remained involved with the
Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics for several years. Having had his
share of rain, snow, and wind, Cedric has finally settled in
Marseilles, where the sun and the sea are simply warmer than any other
place he has lived in.
Cedric dedicates most of his research to
the multiple sequence alignment problem and its many applications in
biology. His friends claim that his entire life (past, present,
future) is somehow stuffed into the T-Coffee multiple-sequence
alignment package. When he is not busy dismantling T-Coffee and
brewing new sequences, Cedric enjoys life in the company of his wife,
Marita.
