ABSTRACT
Bioinformatics is a complex, multidisciplinary field that focuses on the analysis and interpretation of biological data. In the context of bacterial genetics and genomics, bioinformatics refers to the investigation of nucleic acid sequence data and amino acid sequence data. Bioinformatics brings together computer science, mathematics, statistics, engineering, physics, chemistry, and biology. Primarily, bioinformatics is computer-based, however the investigations pursued on the computer can then be brought into the laboratory for verification or further experimentation. In this chapter, the power of bioinformatics in interpreting bacterial data will be explored, including examples of how bioinformatics can be applied to various research questions.
