Strategies and opportunities for promoting bioinformatics in Zimbabwe

摘要

The increasing applications of advanced technologies in life sciences are fueling the growth ofdata from genome sequencing, functional genomics experiments, and macromolecular structure determination. Bioinformatics (sometimes interchangeably used with the term “computational biology”) permits researchers to collect, manage, and sift through these massive data setsand derive scientific insight from them [1,2]. Bioinformatics holds a big promise in addressingmany of the problems that are facing humanity today, including human health, agriculture,and the environment [3–8]. Consequently, the demand for skilled scientists with the ability touse information technology to solve life science problems has been rising steadily globally.