An Introduction to Applied Bioinformatics: a free, open, and interactive text.

Abstract

Due to the increasing rate of biological data generation, bioinformatics is rapidly growing as a field and is now an essential part of scientific advances in human health and environmental sciences. Online and publicly accessible resources for learning bioinformatics exist (e.g., Rosalind, (Searls, 2012, 2014)), and there are excellent text- books and courses in the area, some focused heavily on theory (Durbin, Eddy, Krogh, & Mitchison, 1998; Felsenstein, 2003), and others geared toward learning specific skills such as Python programming or the Unix shell (Dunn & Haddock, 2010; Wilson, 2016). An Introduction to Applied Bioinformatics (IAB) is a free, online bioinformatics text that bridges the gap between theory and application by teaching fundamentals of bioinformat- ics in the context of their implementation, using an interactive framework based on highly relevant tools including Python 3, Jupyter Notebooks, and GitHub.