GOAL OF BIOINFORMATICS: Speeding up the process of recovering and manipulating the raw data from biomolecules using the computational techniques and presenting it in a user friendly manner is the goal of Bioinformatics.
Molecular biology forms one of the important prerequisites in mastering/learning this subject.Any candidate who is good in molecular biology and chemistry with a little bit of knowledge of computers will have a kick starting career in this field.
JOB ASPECTS OF BIOINFORMATICS:
Bioinformaticians secure jobs on these broadly classified three areas.
1.Candidates from computers(good in any programming language like C,C++,JAVA and PERL) , Mathematics and a sound background of physics especially statistical and molecular physics can develop new algorithms for the development of softwares in this BI field. This field is an important field today in the BI world as it is extremely difficult to find people who are well qualified in both biology and computers.
2.Candidates belonging to various fields of medicinal sciences like MBBS, M.Pharm, B.Pharm, M.Sc(any life sciences like botany,zoology,microbiology,biochemistry, biotechnology,genetics,etc ) can use BI as a tool to explore the raw data, as this particular field is very much useful in designing drugs for various diseases.Thus the drug discovery process is speeded up using BI as a tool.
3.Candidates who have expertise knowledge in crystallography of biologically relevant molecules(macromolecules) contribute a lot to this field and this is one of the oldest field of BI as this provides the necessary source or structural information regarding the functioning of a biomolecule in a given environment,as the structure of a macromolecule decides its fuction.
The above fields collectively were known as structural biology before a couple of years ,where only crystallographers and biologists who knew some computational skills were using BI as a tool for their investigations,unfortunately today BI is used as BusIness at various concerns.Once upon a time ,there was a hype for IT and now it is for BT/BI.Note that BioTechnology(BT) uses this tool do develop this process and has nothing to do with core bioinformatics.
