B.Pharm sem 2 Computer Applications in Pharmacy Introduction, Objective of Bioinformatics, Bioinformatics Databases, Concept of Bioinformatics, Impact of Bioinformatics in Vaccine Discovery

1. - Miss Vedika
Narvekar
M.Pharm

2. Bioinformatics
 It is a science of collecting and organizing biological data. It is a branch of computer science that
develops various methods and software tools to understand and analyze biological data.
 Initially, the main emphasis of bioinformatics was creation and maintenance of database to store
biological information such as nucleotide and amino acid databases. But now the scope is extended and
is used for the determination of biologically significant data and its analysis.
 It combines the use of mathematically, statistical and computational methods to analyze various types of
biological, molecular and genetic data ( DNA structures & compositions).

3.  Goals
- To understand the living cell and its function at molecular level.
- Detail analysis of raw molecular sequences.
Bioinformatics is necessary to understand the proper functioning of genes in human body
because in later stages of pharmacy, a particular drug’s design, target selection in a disease and
its mode of action is entirely based on these facts.
 Objectives
- Study normal biological process
- Analyze the cause of disease
- Design various approaches to improve biological processes
- Improving drug discovery techniques
- Helps in developing new target drugs for fatal diseases

4.  It refers to collection and compilation of data which is structured, presented and cross
referenced across the globe.
Examples:
Genbank, Uniprot- used in biological sequence analysis
InterPro, Pfam- used in finding Protein Families
Sequence Read Archive- used in Next Generation Sequencing
GenoCAD- used in design of synthetic genetic circuits
PreDDICTA- calculates drug DNA interaction
Sanjeevani- complete drug design software

5. Biological databases are most important component of bioinformatics because,
1. They can be accessed from any web server.
2. Most of the databases are merged with each other so searching one is virtually the same as
searching all others.
3. It supports several input type for query sequence.
Types
1. Generalized databases: - it mainly includes data of DNA, protein, carbohydrate, 3-D
structures etc.
2. Specialized databases: - it includes data of EST(expressed sequence tag), RNA, genomes,
protein families, pathways etc.

6. The database is further classified by using various parameters such as,
1. According to Data type: Genome database, sequence database, structure, enzyme, disease
database, bibliographic databases etc.
 Genome database: contains information of whole genome sequence of viruses, eukaryotes and
prokaryotes.
 Sequence database: include protein and nucleotide sequence data.
 Structural database: comprises of biological data of 3D structure of proteins and nucleic acid.
 Enzyme database: deals with structure, function and pathways of various enzymes.
 Disease database: contains information of diseases.
 Bibliographic database: comprises of articles and research papers of different journals.
2. According to maintenance status: National Centre for Biotechnology Information ( NCBI),
Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB)
3. According to Data access: this database is available publicly, with a copy right for browsing
only but it cant be downloaded.

7. 4. According to data source:
 Primary source database- contains original data from the researchers and mostly it is directly
available for public or open access like NCBI,GENEBANK etc.
 Secondary source database- this database contains results from entries of primary database. It
is created manually or generated automatically.
5. According to database design: it contains Flat- files and includes Relational Database.
Features of biological database:
- Heterogeneity in data- Database contains diverse type of biological data that can be used for
various purposes.
- High volume data- large amount of data is collected in database such as disease database,
which contains information about every disease and its aspects.
- Data curation- whatever information present in database is neatly assembled, managed and
represented.
- Data sharing - the database information can be used and shared by anyone.

8. It refers to its approach towards balancing biology, mathematics and computer programming in
order to ensure availability of tools to compute and analyze biological data in a best possible
manner.
It provides a deeper understanding of molecular biology, software programs, program coding and
decoding, genetic data analysis and study of DNA structure and composition.
Bioinformatics is getting popular because it applies knowledge from both biology and computer
science and this is further used to find new techniques of biological developments for better
human health.
It provides a very challenging task for researchers as it usually converts biological observations
into digital format or language that can be read by the computer.
Biological reaction Digitalized computer readable format ------BIOINFORMATICS

9.  It helps in discovery of vaccines in a more effective way and in shorter span of time.
 It reduces the time and cost required to develop high potency drugs with fewer side effects.
 Science of genomics plays a vital role in improving human health globally. If a genome
sequence of a pathogen is available, a vaccine can be easily created to destroy that sequence &
thus the occurrence of disease can be prevented. Genomic data are processed by variety of
software programs that help identify individual genes.
 Designing an ideal vaccine largely depends on targeted pathogens and their interactions with
existing drugs. Study of genome sequences of various pathogens along with rapid
advancements in biotechnology allows to collect large amount of useful information about
hosts and pathogens that play an important role in discovery of vaccines.
 Hence, bioinformatics has the potential to improve process of vaccine development.

10. Limitations of bioinformatics
 Expensive technique: The field of bioinformatics requires sophisticated laboratory of molecular
biology for detail study of biomolecules and establishment of such laboratories is expensive and
requires large funds.
 Requires skilled person: As these tools are computer based the study of cellular processes using
these tools requires specialized software. Thus special training is compulsory.
 Requires timely maintenance: The maintenance and up keeping of molecular laboratories
involves lot of expenditure which becomes a limiting factor.
 Threat of viruses: Several problems such as deletion of important data and corruption of
programmes.
 Uninterrupted electricity: There should be uninterrupted power supply for computer aided
biological investigations as interruption of power supply may sometimes lead to loss of huge data
from the computer memory.

12.  Pre-clinical development
It mainly includes the testing of a prospective drug on experimental animals to determine its
safety and dose that can be further used in humans.
Before any drug is tested on humans, a lot of experiments are conducted on animals to ensure
that the drug is safe for human use. All the data related to drug and its existence, use, safety,
dosage, FDA approval etc. are considered before the launch of any product in the market.
This crucial information is entered and stored in computers that can be further analyzed as and
when required by scientists, pharmacists, physicians and other healthcare professionals.

13. Role of computers in pre-clinical development
 Acts as a storehouse of drug information
 Aids in study of toxicological and risk assessment
 Helps to develop predictive models for better decisions
 Makes pharmaceutical development more efficient
 Ensures collection and management of clinical data
 Aids in better medical decision making