Are computational biology and bioinformatics different?
Bioinformatics is often used to focus on the development and application of tools to support experimental research and address specific questions in molecular or genomic biology. In contrast, we use computational biology to emphasise the application of mathematics, statistics, computation and IT to understand biological systems at a deeper or more conceptual level. It is easy to consider extreme cases. Designing a database to store results of an expression microarray experiment, populating that database with experimental results, and searching GenBank to match expressed genes to annotation are all instances of bioinformatics in action. Modelling the hierarchical stability of cellular regulatory networks using systems control theory, or reconstructing the evolution of the mammalian immune system, are examples of computational biology. Other cases are less easy to assign, or indeed might include aspects of both bioinformatics and computational biology. Bioinformatic methods and tools are
