Communications of the ACM

ing picture is a more relevant analogy—they’re able to pore over vastly more data across a wide swath of disciplines and fields. “Biological systems provide remarkable insights into many things occurring in the world around us,” Levitt observes.

The possibilities are nearly limitless. In addition to vastly improved medical therapies and drugs, researchers could use biological data to better understand air and water pollution patterns and how they impact health; how hazardous substances disperse and interact with their surroundings, and how soil organisms and different chemicals react to different conditions. All of this could lead to new types of pollution controls, better HAZMAT monitoring and protective clothing, and vastly improved food science and farming methods. Bioinformatics research could also produce new and better types of fuels, and revolutionize everything from batteries to industrial manufacturing.

Developing better algorithms
and computer models requires fresh
thinking and interdisciplinary input.
Shaw believes in most areas of com-
putational biology, the most signifi-
cant contributions tend to emerge
from interdisciplinary research that
“brings computer scientists together
with biologists, chemists, and other
application experts. Collaborations
of this sort often lead to creative new
approaches to problems that would be
difficult to solve using the paradigms
traditionally employed within any one
of those disciplines.”
According to Shamir, the key to min-
ing relevant biomedical data is refining
algorithms to appropriately estimate
the value of relevant experiments and
data. In addition, it is critical to further
improve storage capacity and compres-
sion—and to tap into cloud comput-
ing more effectively—in order to make
data more accessible. “We need new
and more sophisticated bioinformat-
ics algorithms that can integrate het-
erogeneous data better,” Shamir says.
Increasingly, “The challenge isn’t ob-
taining data, it is figuring out exactly
how to decipher it. Right now, analysis
is the bottleneck.”
Levitt believes bioinformatics will
fundamentally alter science in the
years ahead. “At a certain level, there is
a structure to all data that exists in the
physical world,” he explains. “Today,
many of the methods used to analyze
data are generic; researchers look for
correlations, dependency, and causal-
ity.” However, as researchers learn to
drill down to a more granular layer and
gain a much deeper understanding of
objects, context, and relationships, re-
markable advances will follow.

On a molecular level, “A bridge and an eating utensil are both made of steel; it is the shape of the object and how it works that determines its place in the scheme of things.” As we learn to better recognize and differentiate complex patterns in biology, Levitt says, we will begin to see the shapes and structures of biological things beyond the basic structures. “It is possible to gain a level of knowledge that will revolutionize many aspects of our world.”

Beyond Medicine

Nanotechnology, gaming, crowdsourc-ing, and connected devices are also emerging as important components in the giant bioinformatics cog. For example, a game called Dizeez created by The Scripps Research Institute aims to resolve questions about genetic medicine. It has resulted in the identification of several novel gene-disease annotations. Another game created by New England Biolabs, Cut it Out, revolves around players creating and manipulating DNA sequences.

As researchers turn to these tools, the possibilities grow exponentially. Using sensors and data input from mobile phones, biologists are not only able to capture a more complete snapshot of the surrounding environment and various factors—perhaps a mov-