Challenges for knowledge discovery in biology

Bioinformatics is the study of information flow in biology. Interest in the field has exploded in the last 10 years with the emergence of techniques for large scale experimental data collection-including genome sequencing, gene expression analysis, protein interaction detection, high-throughput structure determination and others. These techniques, in the context of a large online published literature, have created relatively large data sets (at least by biological standards) that are not possible to analyze manually. There is therefore a critical need for methods to analyze these data and reduce them to new knowledge. The principle challenges to the field include the great diversity of data types and questions that are asked of the data, and the communication difficulties that can exist between experts in biology and experts in machine learning. In this talk, I will provide an introduction to the major biological questions that are being addressed, why they are important, and how the field is trying to address them with technical approaches.