An Overview on Bioinformatics

2. Bioinformatics: An Overview Of Cancer Research

Bioinformatics is the integration of the fields of biology, computer science, statistics, and mathematics (Al-Rajab & Lu, 2012), with each field playing a significant role in gathering, forming, analysing, and digitising genetic data. Moreover, it aids the efficient categorisation and storage of data (Al-Rajab & Lu, 2012; Bayat, 2002; Cohen, 2005; Jawdat, 2006; Jena et al., 2009; Ng & Wong, 2004).

Bioinformatics was first introduced in 1979 by Paulien Hogeweg to study the informatic procedures of biological systems (Raza, 2012). This section elaborates bioinformatics using a variety of scientific papers to establish the basis for the current research, to identify core bioinformatics applications, to present the data structure and the central databases employed, to provide an overview of the most popular algorithms applied to this field, and to advocate for the employment of bioinformatics in the area of cancer research.