topic Hightech Strategy

Bioinformatics

One of the major revolutionary developments in biology - the decoding of the genome - took ten years. Sequencing has produced a flood of data, which can only be managed with the help of computers. It is now necessary to generate, collect and analyse - for all the genes of an organism, if possible - all the data which have proved essential for understanding the function of individual genes. It is therefore impossible for genomics and biotechnology to make further progress without bioinformatics.

After the sequencing of the human genome and of the major model organisms (including rice, rat, mouse, zebrafish and globefish), research is increasingly focusing on functional analysis (structure, function and interaction of proteins). As regulatory systems in cells and organisms are very complex, a huge amount of data must be analysed and used. Therefore, the already great importance of bioinformatics will increase further.

So far, bioinformatics has mainly supported the interpretation and processing of complex biological genome, proteome and structural data. With regard to the medium-term development of the biosciences, the future role of bioinformatics must go far beyond this. It is becoming increasingly clear that a large part of the published experimental findings does not meet relevant requirements. In particular, they cannot be used to develop strategies for the analysis of complex biological processes, one reason being the lack of standardization and comparability of the experiments. Use must therefore be made of bioinformatics in carrying out the necessary planning and standardization work, preferably for all research projects, and in developing a theoretical framework for the integration of the diverse biological data.

The further development of biotechnology, with its impact on medicine, pharmaceuticals, agriculture and the environment as well as on nanotechnology, information technology and materials research, thus depends directly on the further development of bioinformatics. However, like all other industrial nations, Germany faces a major shortage of well-trained bioinformaticians. The BMBF has therefore launched a funding priority which, together with the Länder and the universities and in coordination with the bioinformatics initiative of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), aims to design postgraduate study and training courses and to quickly introduce them within the framework of collaborative projects.

Under the Bioinformatics Training and Technology Campaign, a total of six centres have been established in Berlin, Braunschweig, Gatersleben/Halle, Jena, Cologne and Munich. In July 2001, they received a total of  €50 million in funding for a period of five years.