This post is meant to act as an index of the posts and resources which formed the basis of my “biological” understanding.
DISCLAIMER: My posts here are more or less only a compilation summarising what I learned from various resources (also listed in this post and also cited in specific posts). More often than not, these are in the same words as those I read or heard. I am not trying to reinvent the wheel or to dress it up differently to claim it my own.
My Posts
- Bio.Basics.GroundRules : This post is meant to lay some ground rules by describing some preliminary concepts that most of us might have learned in high school.
- Bio.Basics.Genome : In this post, I have just re-published a part of my PhD thesis that kind of summarises the “genome” part that was sufficient for me, a CS type of person, to get started with the algorithms in bioinformatics.
Resources
- To know the required biology for being a rookie bioinfomatician using purely the computer science framework and terminology (without the depth and “burden” of real biochemical processes), Chapter 1 of the book “Genome-Scale Algorithm Design” is an excellent starting point. The whole book itself is of great value when it comes to understanding the algorithmic foundations behind the widely-used tools in bioinformatics.
- To brush up the biology concept that one may have learned in high school, this course proves out to be a good resource. Specifically, modules 3 (Important Biological Macromolecules), 4 (Cellular Structure), and 8 to 11 (Cell Division; DNA Structure and Replication; DNA Transcription and Translation; Gene Expression) are worth having a cursory look.
- To really learn Biology 101, I found this course–Introduction to Biology: The Secret of Life–on edX by Prof. Eric Lander to be extremely helpful. Especially, lectures from Week 5 to Week 9 (DNA and replication; Transcription, Translation, and Variations; Recombinant DNA, Genomics).
- To quickly glance through terminology and glossary of the terms used in bioinformatics, this link serves the purpose.