"... this book was written from start to finish by one extremely dedicated and erudite individual. The author has done an excellent job of covering the many topics that fall under the umbrella of computational biology for vaccine design, demonstrating an admirable command of subject matter in fields as disparate as object-oriented databases and regulation of T cell response. Simply put, it has just the right breadth and depth, and it reads well. In fact, readability is one of its virtues—making the book enticing and useful, all at once..." Human Vaccines, 2010 "... This book has several strong points. Although there are many textbooks that deal with vaccinology, few attempts have been made to bring together descriptions of vaccines in history, basic bioinformatics, various computational solutions and challenges in vaccinology, detailed experimental methodologies, and cutting-edge technologies... This book may well serve as a first line of reference for all biologists and computer scientists..." –Virology Journal, 2009 Vaccines have probably saved more lives and reduced suffering in a greater number of people than any other medical intervention in human history, succeeding in eradicating smallpox and significantly reducing the mortality and incidence of other diseases. However, with the emergence of diseases such as SARS and the threat of biological warfare, vaccination has once again become a topic of major interest in public health. Vaccinology now has at its disposal an array of post-genomic approaches of great power. None has a more persuasive potential impact than the application of computational informatics to vaccine discovery; the recent expansion in genome data and the parallel increase in cheap computing power have placed the bioinformatics exploration of pathogen genomes centre stage for vaccine researchers. This is the first book to address the area of bioinformatics as applied to rational vaccine design, discussing the ways in which bioinformatics can contribute to improved vaccine development by introducing the subject of harnessing the mathematical and computing power inherent in bioinformatics to the study of vaccinology putting it into a historical and societal context, and exploring the scope of its methods and applications. Bioinformatics for Vaccinology is a one-stop introduction to computational vaccinology. It will be of particular interest to bioinformaticians with an interest in immunology, as well as to immunologists, and other biologists who need to understand how advances in theoretical and computational immunobiology can transform their working practices.

Python for Bioinformatics provides a clear introduction to the Python programming language and instructs beginners on the development of simple programming exercises. Important Notice: The digital edition of this book is missing some of the images or content found in the physical edition.

Life science data integration and interoperability is one of the most challenging problems facing bioinformatics today. In the current age of the life sciences, investigators have to interpret many types of information from a variety of sources: lab instruments, public databases, gene expression profiles, raw sequence traces, single nucleotide polymorphisms, chemical screening data, proteomic data, putative metabolic pathway models, and many others. Unfortunately, scientists are not currently able to easily identify and access this information because of the variety of semantics, interfaces, and data formats used by the underlying data sources. Bioinformatics: Managing Scientific Data tackles this challenge head-on by discussing the current approaches and variety of systems available to help bioinformaticians with this increasingly complex issue. The heart of the book lies in the collaboration efforts of eight distinct bioinformatics teams that describe their own unique approaches to data integration and interoperability. Each system receives its own chapter where the lead contributors provide precious insight into the specific problems being addressed by the system, why the particular architecture was chosen, and details on the system's strengths and weaknesses. In closing, the editors provide important criteria for evaluating these systems that bioinformatics professionals will find valuable. * Provides a clear overview of the state-of-the-art in data integration and interoperability in genomics, highlighting a variety of systems and giving insight into the strengths and weaknesses of their different approaches. * Discusses shared vocabulary, design issues, complexity of use cases, and the difficulties of transferring existing data management approaches to bioinformatics systems, which serves to connect computer and life scientists. * Written by the primary contributors of eight reputable bioinformatics systems in academia and industry including: BioKris, TAMBIS, K2, GeneExpress, P/FDM, MBM, SDSC, SRS, and DiscoveryLink.

Sequence similarity is a powerful tool for discovering biological function. Just as the ancient Greeks used comparative anatomy to understand the human body and linguists used the Rosetta stone to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs, today we can use comparative sequence analysis to understand genomes. BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool), is a sophisticated software package for rapid searching of nucleotide and protein databases. It is one of the most important software packages used in sequence analysis and bioinformatics. Most users of BLAST, however, seldom move beyond the program's default parameters, and never take advantage of its full power. BLAST is the only book completely devoted to this popular suite of tools. It offers biologists, computational biology students, and bioinformatics professionals a clear understanding of BLAST as well as the science it supports. This book shows you how to move beyond the default parameters, get specific answers using BLAST, and how to interpret your results. The book also contains tutorial and reference sections covering NCBI-BLAST and WU-BLAST, background material to help you understand the statistics behind BLAST, Perl scripts to help you prepare your data and analyze your results, and a wealth of tips and tricks for configuring BLAST to meet your own research needs. Some of the topics covered include: BLAST basics and the NCBI web interface How to select appropriate search parameters BLAST programs: BLASTN, BLASTP, BLASTX, TBLASTN, TBLASTX, PHI-BLAST, and PSI BLAST Detailed BLAST references, including NCBI-BLAST and WU-BLAST Understanding biological sequences Sequence similarity, homology, scoring matrices, scores, and evolution Sequence Alignment Calculating BLAST statistics Industrial-strength BLAST, including developing applications with Perl and BLAST BLAST is the only comprehensive reference with detailed, accurate information on optimizing BLAST searches for high-throughput sequence analysis. This is a book that any biologist should own.

Bringing the power of virtual instrumentation to the biomedical community. Applications across diverse medical specialties Detailed design guides for LabVIEW and BioBench applications Hands-on problem-solving throughout the book Laboratory, clinical, and healthcare applications Numerous VI's with source code, plus several demos, are available on the book's web site Virtual instrumentation allows medical researchers and practitioners to combine the traditional diagnostic tools with advanced technologies such as databases, Active X, and the Internet. In both laboratory and clinical environments, users can interact with a wealth of disparate systems, facilitating better, faster, and more informed decision making. Virtual Bio-Instrumentation: Biomedical, Clinical, and Healthcare Applications in LabVIEW is the first book of its kind to apply VI technology to the biomedical field. Hands-on problems throughout the book demonstrate immediate practical uses Examples cover a variety of medical specialties Detailed design instructions give the inside view of LabVIEW and BioBench applications Both students and practicing professionals will appreciate the practical applications offered for modeling fundamental physiology, advanced systems analysis, medical device development and testing, and even hospital management and clinical engineering scenarios.

Bioinformatics--the application of computational and analytical methods to biological problems--is a rapidly evolving scientific discipline. Genome sequencing projects are producing vast amounts of biological data for many different organisms, and, increasingly, storing these data in public databases. Such biological databases are growing exponentially, along with the biological literature. It's impossible for even the most zealous researcher to stay on top of necessary information in the field without the aid of computer-based tools. Bioinformatics is all about building these tools. Developing Bioinformatics Computer Skills is for scientists and students who are learning computational approaches to biology for the first time, as well as for experienced biology researchers who are just starting to use computers to handle their data. The book covers the Unix file system, building tools and databases for bioinformatics, computational approaches to biological problems, an introduction to Perl for bioinformatics, data mining, and data visualization. Written in a clear, engaging style, Developing Bioinformatics Computer Skills will help biologists develop a structured approach to biological data as well as the tools they'll need to analyze the data.