Computational Genomics

Computational Genomics with R provides a starting point for beginners in genomic data analysis and also guides more advanced practitioners to sophisticated data analysis techniques in genomics. The book covers topics from R programming, to machine learning and statistics, to the latest genomic data analysis techniques. The text provides accessible information and explanations, always with the genomics context in the background. This also contains practical and well-documented examples in R so readers can analyze their data by simply reusing the code presented. As the field of computational genomics is interdisciplinary, it requires different starting points for people with different backgrounds. For example, a biologist might skip sections on basic genome biology and start with R programming, whereas a computer scientist might want to start with genome biology. After reading: You will have the basics of R and be able to dive right into specialized uses of R for computational genomics such as using Bioconductor packages. You will be familiar with statistics, supervised and unsupervised learning techniques that are important in data modeling, and exploratory analysis of high-dimensional data. You will understand genomic intervals and operations on them that are used for tasks such as aligned read counting and genomic feature annotation. You will know the basics of processing and quality checking high-throughput sequencing data. You will be able to do sequence analysis, such as calculating GC content for parts of a genome or finding transcription factor binding sites. You will know about visualization techniques used in genomics, such as heatmaps, meta-gene plots, and genomic track visualization. You will be familiar with analysis of different high-throughput sequencing data sets, such as RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, and BS-seq. You will know basic techniques for integrating and interpreting multi-omics datasets. Altuna Akalin is a group leader and head of the Bioinformatics and Omics Data Science Platform at the Berlin Institute of Medical Systems Biology, Max Delbrück Center, Berlin. He has been developing computational methods for analyzing and integrating large-scale genomics data sets since 2002. He has published an extensive body of work in this area. The framework for this book grew out of the yearly computational genomics courses he has been organizing and teaching since 2015.

An essential book for anyone involved in genomics or bioinformatics.

Where did SARS come from? Have we inherited genes from Neanderthals? How do plants use their internal clock? The genomic revolution in biology enables us to answer such questions. But the revolution would have been impossible without the support of powerful computational and statistical methods that enable us to exploit genomic data. Many universities are introducing courses to train the next generation of bioinformaticians: biologists fluent in mathematics and computer science, and data analysts familiar with biology. This readable and entertaining book, based on successful taught courses, provides a roadmap to navigate entry to this field. It guides the reader through key achievements of bioinformatics, using a hands-on approach. Statistical sequence analysis, sequence alignment, hidden Markov models, gene and motif finding and more, are introduced in a rigorous yet accessible way. A companion website provides the reader with Matlab-related software tools for reproducing the steps demonstrated in the book.

This book presents the foundations of key problems in computational molecular biology and bioinformatics. It focuses on computational and statistical principles applied to genomes, and introduces the mathematics and statistics that are crucial for understanding these applications. The book features a free download of the R software statistics package and the text provides great crossover material that is interesting and accessible to students in biology, mathematics, statistics and computer science. More than 100 illustrations and diagrams reinforce concepts and present key results from the primary literature. Exercises are given at the end of chapters.

Biology is in the midst of a era yielding many significant discoveries and promising many more. Unique to this era is the exponential growth in the size of information-packed databases. Inspired by a pressing need to analyze that data, Introduction to Computational Biology explores a new area of expertise that emerged from this fertile field- the combination of biological and information sciences. This introduction describes the mathematical structure of biological data, especially from sequences and chromosomes. After a brief survey of molecular biology, it studies restriction maps of DNA, rough landmark maps of the underlying sequences, and clones and clone maps. It examines problems associated with reading DNA sequences and comparing sequences to finding common patterns. The author then considers that statistics of pattern counts in sequences, RNA secondary structure, and the inference of evolutionary history of related sequences. Introduction to Computational Biology exposes the reader to the fascinating structure of biological data and explains how to treat related combinatorial and statistical problems. Written to describe mathematical formulation and development, this book helps set the stage for even more, truly interdisciplinary work in biology.

Where did SARS come from? Have we inherited genes from Neanderthals? How do plants use their internal clock? The genomic revolution in biology enables us to answer such questions. But the revolution would have been impossible without the support of powerful computational and statistical methods that enable us to exploit genomic data. Many universities are introducing courses to train the next generation of bioinformaticians: biologists fluent in mathematics and computer science, and data analysts familiar with biology. This readable and entertaining book, based on successful taught courses, provides a roadmap to navigate entry to this field. It guides the reader through key achievements of bioinformatics, using a hands-on approach. Statistical sequence analysis, sequence alignment, hidden Markov models, gene and motif finding and more, are introduced in a rigorous yet accessible way. A companion website provides the reader with Matlab-related software tools for reproducing the steps demonstrated in the book.

The enormous complexity of biological systems at the molecular level must be answered with powerful computational methods. Computational biology is a young field, but has seen rapid growth and advancement over the past few decades. Surveying the progress made in this multidisciplinary field, the Handbook of Computational Molecular Biology of

Sequence - Evolution - Function is an introduction to the computational approaches that play a critical role in the emerging new branch of biology known as functional genomics. The book provides the reader with an understanding of the principles and approaches of functional genomics and of the potential and limitations of computational and experimental approaches to genome analysis. Sequence - Evolution - Function should help bridge the "digital divide" between biologists and computer scientists, allowing biologists to better grasp the peculiarities of the emerging field of Genome Biology and to learn how to benefit from the enormous amount of sequence data available in the public databases. The book is non-technical with respect to the computer methods for genome analysis and discusses these methods from the user's viewpoint, without addressing mathematical and algorithmic details. Prior practical familiarity with the basic methods for sequence analysis is a major advantage, but a reader without such experience will be able to use the book as an introduction to these methods. This book is perfect for introductory level courses in computational methods for comparative and functional genomics.

This book, first published in 2005, offers an introduction to the application of algebraic statistics to computational biology.

This textbook is for anyone who needs to learn the basics of bioinformatics—the use of computational methods to better understand biological systems. Computational Biology covers the principles and applications of the computational methods used to study DNA, RNA, and proteins, including using biological databases such as NCBI and UniProt; performing BLAST, sequence alignments, and structural predictions; and creating phylogenetic trees. It includes a primer that can be used as a jumping off point for learning computer programming for bioinformatics. This text can be used as a self-study guide, as a course focused on computational methods in biology/bioinformatics, or to supplement general courses that touch on topics included within the book. Computational Biology's robust interactive online components “gamify” the study of bioinformatics, allowing the reader to practice randomly generated problems on their own time to build confidence and skill and gain practical real-world experience. The online component also assures that the content being taught is up to date and accurately reflects the ever-changing landscape of bioinformatics web-based programs.