Welcome to Biology In Silico!
As I finish my last semester at Johns Hopkins University, I decided to try my hand at blogging. I don't intend to be a huge blog, make tons of money, or become famous. I simply want to be a resource of interesting and, more importantly, accurate information about bioinformatics, biology, science in general, education, and emerging technologies and developments.
Bioinformatics is a broad range of technologies and techniques dealing with biology in silico. I think most people familiar with the terms in vitro (in glass) and in vivo (in the living). In silico, simply put, means "in silicon" or as it alludes to, the silicon chips of computers. With advances in technology as well as massive increases in biological data, in silico has started to become a necessary part of most biological endeavors.
The term "bioinformatics" was originally coined in the late 70s, and was used in the 80s mainly in genomics and DNA-sequencing. Its use has now expanded to analysis of gene expression, analysis protein expression, analysis of cancer mutation, modeling & simulation of biological systems, computational drug discovery & development, and more.
I've covered several of these topics throughout my coursework, and as an exercise in review and learning, I'll post about these topics. I'll also post about computers and software engineering, as well as science education. As this is a review and learning for myself as well, if you find something I post to be factually incorrect, I encourage you to correct me. I am by no means a perfect resource, and I will undoubtedly make mistakes even as I try to post with citations.
I will try to avoid controversial topics, but when you're dealing with science and education, things are bound to come up. I promise that I will not censor my comments unless there is good reason to (like posting someone's personal information). I won't cover all specific rules unless it becomes necessary, but you can be assured that as long as the comment is on topic it will remain on the post regardless of the opinion.
