Integrative Bioinformatics for Biomedical Big Data

Book excerpt: The volume and complexity of biological and biomedical research continues to grow exponentially with cutting-edge technologies such as high-throughput DNA sequencing. Unfortunately, bioinformatics analysis is often considered only after data has been generated, which significantly limits the ability to make sense of complex Big Data. This unique book introduces the idea of no-boundary thinking (NBT) in biological and biomedical research, which aims to access, integrate, and synthesize data, information, and knowledge from bioinformatics to define important problems and articulate impactful research questions. NBT encourages interdisciplinary thinking from the outset so that research is hypothesis-driven rather than data-driven. This interdisciplinary volume brings together a team of bioinformatics specialists who draw on their own experiences with NBT to illustrate the importance of collaborative science. It will help stimulate discussion and application of NBT, and will appeal to all biomedical researchers looking to maximize their use of bioinformatics for making scientific discoveries.