Statistical Bioinformatics

Biotechnological advances are providing levels and magnitudes of genomic data that were unimaginable even five years ago. As such, every component of what we do as scientists is being stretched, changed, and projected forward in anticipation of what is to come, both in research and in educating the next generation of scientists. The largest shift has been in the way we do science, it is no longer single laboratory science, it is now multidisciplinary efforts that bridge many disciplines and many species.

Bioinformatics is an evolving science that is most recently defined as the generation, organization, and analysis of biological data (initially genomic data). Because its definition is broad, bioinformatics is viewed as a subject of scientific investigation that encompasses all biological phenomena.

Statistical Bioinformatics acknowledges the inherent variation found in data that are generated as part of the Bioinformatics investigation and attempts to utilize experimental structure and design to partition variation into biological and technical components. The ultimate goal of statistical bioinformatics is to statistically identify significant changes in biological processes (e.g., changes in DNA sequence, quantitative trait locus identification, differential expression of genes, or changes in protein abundance) for the purpose of answering biological questions.