Isn't the definition given in Wikipedia good enough? And if not, in how far do you think it should be changed or adapted?

Dear Jochen,

Although Wikipedia can evolve as much as the Bioinformatics field does, it does not mean it is the panacea. The definition in itself is vague, the description lengthy. If anything it would fit the "over-inclusive" description:

Most sub entry from Wikipedia are debatable, I could start with "High Throughput Image Analysis", or "System biology", but so many would.

I am more interesting in how people view this "mysterious" field, popular buzz word, according to their background.

Ok, so for me "bioinformatics" is the science (or art) to deal with biological data using information technology (computers, databases, computer algorithms). Contrasts: computational biology is to create in-silico models of biological phenomena, systems biology is "system-wide view" of biological interactions, high-troughput image analysis is just what is says. Whenever these fileds handle biological data or reseach questions and are tackeld by the help of information technology, I would say that bioinformatic tools are used (in computational biology, systems biology, image analysis, ...).

Why should definitions of fuzzy things be more precise than the things itself?

Bioinformatics is simply defined as collection, organization and analysis of biological data.

I have to agree with Dr. Wilhelm and disagree with Mr/Mrs Sudan: Bioinformatics can't be like you define, or it will clash with the very definition of Biostatistics. I agree we don't need harsh bounds on this definition, but to me it appears that some kind of description of Bioinformatics has to include computers in some way. Biostatistics, by its turn doesn't.

The Bioinformatics has evolved as a discipline now. It can be defined in several ways. Some of its definitions are as follows:

Def. 1

Understanding biology in terms of molecules & applying Information Technology (IT) techniques to understand & organized the information associated with these molecules on a large scale. Fundamental issues are how do we describe, analyze, simulate & predict the dynamics of biological process by using IT tools.

Def. 2

Bioinformatics is the science of using biological information to understand biological phenomenon.

Def. 3

“The mathematical, statistical & computing method that aim to solve biological problems using DNA & Amino acid sequence and related information”. [Fredj Tekaia]

Def. 4

The application of computer science and IT in the field of biology to increase the understanding of biological processes [ www.wikipedia.org]

Def. 5

Bioinformatics is the field of science in which biology, computer science, and information technology merge to form a single discipline.

The ultimate goal of the field is to enable the discovery of new biological insights as well as to create a global perspective from which unifying principles in biology can be discerned. [National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)]

Def. 6

At the core level, Bioinformatics deals with biological information doing data collection, storage, searching, retrieval, analysis & predicting patterns.

Where there is an informatics related to Bio is called Bioinformatics

@Luiz Fagundes de Carvalho: I agree I missed the word computers in the definition....here is the consolidated form of what others defined "Bioinformatics is simply defined as collection, organization and analysis of biological data using networks of computers and databases".

It is an interdisciplinary field that develops and improves upon methods for storing, retrieving, organizing and analyzing biological data. Check Wiki for detailed info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioinformatics

Thank you all for your answers.

As mentioned above I am most interested in the perception of Bioinformatics. So it would be great if you could specify whether you are a Bioinformatician or not.

Thanks

Since I work with IT on biological data: yes, I am a bioinformatition :)

I would like someone who is a pure bioinformatician help me here, may be Dr. Wilhelm can correct me if I am wrong, somewhere as a biologist, I think I look at it this way too, that when biological data became large and went beyond handling of the wet lab results, as large amounts of data were generated by experiments within or in between labs and we needed IT to handle the biological infomation to put it to perspective by its tools or algorithms. Then bionformatics came up and their experts or bioinformaticians were requred to help biologists understand the large data with IT.

Well, I think the simpliest definition of bioinformatics is usage of informatics metods to conduct biological research. It would connect databases, data processing, molecular modelling etc.

Thank you all for your contribution.

It is interesting to notice that the focus of this bioinformatician-crowd appears to be on the informatics of handling data; setting up and running databases and pipelines rather than performing analysis.

While from my experience the reality of a bioinformatician's day to day job involves much more analytical expertise, beyond algorithmic, e.g (bio-)statistics, especially in the eyes of PIs.

For example, successful grant applications involving genetic data often require to include a Bioinformatician to manage AND perform the analysis, not a biostatistician.

Note that I am heading a bioinformatics group which includes biostatisticians.

I think many people, including me, do not always have a clear cut between Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. I tend to use "Bioinformatics" in cases that would be better to use Computational Biology. There are also overlapping areas of Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Biostatistics. I think "Computational Biology" is more appropriate when automated analytical expertise is to be emphasized. On the other hand, "Bioinformatics" is when building databases, developing algorithms are to be emphasized. Practically it is not important to me which term is used, but rather the specialized parts of researchers or research groups that define the term to their targeted audience. This may not sound good when you have to teach students about the subject.

Bioinformatics is a terrible name, none uses the term Physicsinformatics given anyone knows that physics needs quantitative analysis and the fact this analysis is made by the use of a computer is totally irrelevant, but we use bioinformatics putting the emphasis on the mean (the computer) and not the content (adopting a quantitative attitude in the analysis of biological questions). I think that too much emphasis put in the media instead that in the message, arriving at the distopic 'media is the message' is the virus that is disgregating science (after having disgregated art, cinema, musics, literature...)

Thanks to all. This was a great discussion and good to learn that we as biologists and medical researchers now need to work in connection with computational biology departments, rather than simply having a bioinformatician in our own group particularly for high throughput data. Then, more information will be generated from the high throughput data within in the biological context.

Biological information stored in mathematical model

It's a collection of necessary arts to extract knowledge from vast volumes of biological information. So this would include organizing and storing (databasing), processing (algorithms), analysis (algorithms, statistics, mathematical modelling) and interpretation (molecular biology).

A really effective bioinformatician should have good conceptual grasp of all these areas and mastery in at least one of them arts.

Bioinformatics refers to the use of computer science, statistical modelling and algorithmic processing to understand biological data. Bioinformatics is an example of how computer science has revolutionized other fields