Introduction to Bioinformatics Resources

June 14, 2007

1. The hook: several amazing animations of biomolecules in action  DNA Packaging and Replication (http://youtube.com/watch? v=Pj9cdVeIntY )  The Inner Life Of A Cell (http://youtube.com/watch?v=_H1S9d5h-Ps A longer, technically narrated version can be found here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=jjexZ88wIno . Both videos produced by XVIVO, LLC.) 2. An introduction to resources and tools available from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/)  NCBI Field Guide and MiniCourses (under “Education” from left menu)  NCBI Bookshelf (Free online textbooks!!)  Using the tools: “Making Sense of DNA and Protein Sequences” minicourse. 3. Molecular visualization: Fun with PyMol (http://pymol.sourcefourge.net/ )

Online exercises you may be able to use in the classroom: The Dolan DNA Learning Center (DNALC, the educational outreach arm of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) has some nice exercises here: http://www.dnalc.org/bioinformatics/modules/ . The 2003 offering of their course (http://www.dnalc.org/bioinformatics/2003) has a nice gene finding activity (left menu, 1st activity on Tuesday) that utilizes their “GeneBoy” tool (http://www.dnai.org/geneboy/)

Additional bioinformatics resources:  http://adinkelm.public.iastate.edu/ (scroll down to “Guides” section, also note the additional NCBI information available).  The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) also has some nice online courses and tutorials in bioinformatics: http://www.iscb.org/olCourse.shtml  http://bioinformatics.org/  http://biotech.icmb.utexas.edu/pages/bioinfo.html