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20

Solutions to the Exercises

Abstract

In this part, we give suggested solutions and additional explanations to the exercises.

20.1

Sequence Analysis: Deciphering the Language of Life

Questions 1.1 and 1.2

Bioinformatics, or computational biology, attempts to solve biological problems with the

computer. The aim is to secure information and knowledge about organs and diseases in

databases and make them accessible to everyone, but also to identify and understand the

molecular causes associated with a disease and develop suitable models based on this.

This means that the aim is to understand biological function on the basis of information

about DNA, RNA and proteins through programs and software. This is done, for exam­

ple, by sequence analyses in order to obtain information about a pathogen, but also by

genome comparisons in order to obtain differences between the organisms involved (e.g.

humans and parasites). This in turn enables the creation and comparison of metabolic

networks and, finally, the calculation of drugs for important proteins in the parasite that

optimally block the parasitic protein but are tolerated by humans. Bioinformatics is thus

able to better answer basic medical questions based on theoretical knowledge, such as

why people age and die.

Three main areas can be distinguished: (i) Databases and servers integrate and collect

biological data. (ii) Programs and software to study and analyse datasets or experiments.

(iii) Bioinformatics models for modelling and simulation. This can then be used to under­

stand biological functioning, such as modelling the interaction of a drug with its target, or

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023

T. Dandekar, M. Kunz, Bioinformatics,

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-65036-3_20