Bioinformatics can simply be understood as a field of data science based on the amalgamation of computers and biology. In this field, various methods and software are developed for storing, organizing, understanding and interpreting the exponential amount of biological data that ultimately aims at solving problems in medicine and biology. Below are some impacts of Big Data on Bioinformatics:
1. Biology: In today’s world, biologists no longer prefer the traditional ways of working in their laboratories and performing experiments to find out the results rather they use modern and sophisticated technologies that make their work more productive. They increasingly use bioinformatics techniques as they are more cost-effective, time-saving and are continuously growing better at analytics. A combination of big data and bioinformatics is seemingly impeccable and has some amazing benefits in fields of the genomic sequence, protein sequence, and DNA computing, etc. This developing technology has also made data entry quite easy for researchers. Data has become so large that analyzing it with traditional ways has become obsolete and unproductive, but bioinformatics and big data seem to provide a solution to that problem as now various systems have been developed that can recognize large scale patterns and make predictions like protein structure, genomics, etc.
2. Personalized Medicine: It is quite a well-known fact that manufacturers now days are looking for an opportunity to develop high value, cost-effective and targeted drugs that tend to work a lot faster and cause much less harm to the patient. Researchers are currently working quite hard in this area because the development of such personalized medicines on an economical level will have a groundbreaking impact on a patient’s safety and healthcare quality. Using personalized drugs will also significantly bring down the treatment costs and the duration as they bring out required results faster than traditional drugs. The long research data on genomes, proteomics, metabolomics along with the data from the clinical trials make it feasible for researchers to mine the data and fully understand the structure of disease. This knowledge aids the researchers to develop drugs having the fastest and most accurate identification and validation of targets.
3. Gene Sequences: Researchers have made quite a lot of achievements in gene sequencing due to significant contributions of big data in enormous genome volume. Many genes have been studied and mapped so far that allows the scientist to identify and completely map the working of human genetics. Gene sequencing also helps to protect newborn infants from some diseases that have run down in a family for generations.
4. Preventive Medicines: The systems used in bioinformatics use computational and mathematical modeling to provide solutions to some very complex biological problems. The usage of big data in preventive medicine can have a huge impact on the healthcare sector. This is because the usage of big data in bioinformatics systems promotes better diagnosis during treatment of disease that many times contribute towards the protection, promotion, and maintenance of well being of a person preventing the person from disease, disability, and death.
5. Healthcare: In the healthcare sector, there has been a massive collection of patients data to keep a record of patients and monitor the health of the patient. This technique also makes the treatment of diabetes, chronic diseases, heart diseases, and various cancer conditions easier. Bioinformatics with the aid of big data analytics provides appropriate techniques for the correct understanding of the huge dataset. This provides faster identification and treatment of disease significantly reducing costs and providing better health care of the patient at the same time.
6. Industry: Since bioinformatics is a rich field with a lot of scope of research and has never-ending medical data so, many people see a career in this area as to develop certain software and tools that ease the problem of storing, organizing, understanding, interpreting and retrieving the most appropriate set of data in the most required situation.
With the current uprise in bioinformatics and big data, a world of new possibilities has emerged in the health care sector making it very easy to monitor and manage the overall health and well being of people and find reasons to some unanswered questions in medical science.
