Bioinformatics for Beginners: Genes, Genomes, Molecular Evolution, Databases and Analytical Tools

Bioinformatics for Beginners: Genes, Genomes, Molecular Evolution, Databases and Analytical Tools provides a coherent and friendly treatment of bioinformatics for any student or scientist within biology who has not routinely performed bioinformatic analysis.

The book discusses the relevant principles needed to understand the theoretical underpinnings of bioinformatic analysis and demonstrates, with examples, targeted analysis using freely available web-based software and publicly available databases. Eschewing non-essential information, the work focuses on principles and hands-on analysis, also pointing to further study options.

Avoids non-essential coverage, yet fully describes the field for beginnersExplains the molecular basis of evolution to place bioinformatic analysis in biological contextProvides useful links to the vast resource of publicly available bioinformatic databases and analysis toolsContains over 100 figures that aid in concept discovery and illustration

1. Fundamentals of Genes and Genomes
2. Fundamentals of Molecular Evolution
3. Genomic Technologies
4. The Beginning of Bioinformatics
5. Data, Databases, Data Format, Database Search, Data Retrieval Systems and Genome Browsers
6. Sequence Alignment and Similarity Searching in Genomic Databases: Blast and Fasta
7. Additional Analyses Involving Nucleic Acid Sequences
8. Additional Analyses Involving Protein Sequences
9. Phylogenetic Analysis