The Week of 08/31/09

Content:
In the first lecture of the week Dr. Greenes explained the fundamentals of a lot of the topics in BMI. He also gave an overview of what scientific research is. Additionally, he discussed what research is often done in BMI. While talking about research in BMI, he described some of the applications of knowledge gained through that research. I especially liked the example that Dr. Greenes gave about how doctorates in this program are not given out for simply discovering a new gene. One of the methods that students can use to obtain a doctorate is to describe a novel process that allows someone to discover a new gene. I appreciated learning more about the information science aspects of BMI that he taught in the lecture.

The second lecture was given by Dr. Fridsma and he talked about a variety of the properties that Ontologies have. He also discussed methods of organizing vocabulary. Furthermore, he instructed what some current examples of Ontologies and other vocabulary organizational systems are. He taught that having standardization in the definitions of connections between terms is an important property of Ontologies. That property separates them from some other vocabulary organizational systems. Moreover, he described what some online tools were for using Ontologies. I liked how Dr. Fridsma explained how Onologies compared to other vocabulary organizational systems. That explanation helped me to understand what standards should be in place for a controlled vocabulary system that will be used in critical environments such as hospitals. I thought that Dr. Fridsma's use of real world examples of Ontologies helped make the lesson engaging.

Speaking of describing a process to find a gene for a trait, here is a guide from the NCBI on how to do that:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bookshelf/br.fcgi?book=comgen&part=gene
That guide has useful links for Bioinformatics analysis tools. Also, the guide provides a nice example of how the NCBI's web site can be a useful place for educating anyone about Bioinformatics.

Posted By:

Nate