BOL: Related items

10 Books to Kickstart (and Level Up) Your Bioinformatics Journey

Neel — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 03:50:11 -0500

If you’re starting out in bioinformatics or looking to sharpen your computational biology skills, having the right learning resources makes all the difference.
Here’s my curated list of 10 must-read books — from beginner-friendly introductions to advanced computational genomics.

1️⃣ Data Analysis for the Life Sciences
A fantastic starting point to learn statistics, R programming, and exploratory data analysis in the context of biology. The best part? It’s available free online from HarvardX.

2️⃣ Practical Computing for Biologists
The very first book I picked up when I started learning computational biology. It’s beginner-friendly and focuses on essential computing skills every biologist needs.

3️⃣ A Primer for Computational Biology
An open-access, hands-on introduction to computational biology concepts and coding techniques. Perfect if you want to learn through real examples.

4️⃣ Computational Genomics with R
For those who already know R and want to dive deeper into genome-scale data analysis, from sequence alignment to gene expression.

5️⃣ The Biologist’s Guide to Computing
Bridges the gap between biological problems and computational thinking, making it easier for life scientists to approach programming and data analysis.

6️⃣ Bioinformatics Data Skills
A must-read to sharpen your bioinformatics toolkit — from command-line skills to reproducible research workflows. Ideal once you’ve covered the basics.

7️⃣ Bioinformatics Workbook
A practical tutorial series to help scientists design bioinformatics projects, analyze data, and understand best practices.

8️⃣ Modern Statistics for Modern Biology
An essential guide to modern statistical methods applied to biology, blending theory with hands-on examples in R.

9️⃣ Algorithms on Strings, Trees, and Sequences by Dan Gusfield
A classic reference for anyone wanting to understand the algorithms behind sequence alignment, genome assembly, and biological data structures.

Must read paper and books in evolution biology !

Abhi — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 18:33:01 -0500

1.       *Nick Barton:*

- The textbook "Evolution" by Nick Barton, with resources for
  exploring the literature: Barton, N. H., Briggs, D. E. G., Eisen, J.
  A., Goldstein, D. B., & Patel, N. H. (2007). Evolution. Cold Spring
  Harbor Laboratory Press.

- Papers from a course named "Classics in Evolutionary Biology":

Evolutionary Synthesis
1. Haldane, J. B. S. 1932. The causes of evolution. Longmans. New York.
   (esp. Ch. IV).
2. Fisher, R. A. 1930. The genetical theory of natural selection. Oxford
   University Press, Oxford. Selected Sections - Fundamental Theorem.

Genetic Variation
1a. Lewontin, R. C., and J. L. Hubby. 1966. A molecular approach to
the study of genic heterozygosity in natural populations. II. Amount
of variation and degree of heterozygosity in natural populations of
Drosophila pseudoobscura. Genetics. 54:595-609.

1b. Sachidandam et al. 2001. A map of human genome sequence variation
containing 1.42 million single nucleotide polymorphisms. 409: 928-33.

2. Wright S., Dobzhansky T., Hovanitz W. 1942 Genetics of natural
populations VII The allelism of lethals in the third chromosome of
Drosophila pseudoobscura. Genetics 27: 363-394.

Recombination and evolution
1. Hill, W. G., and A. Robertson. 1966. The effect of linkage on limits
to artificial selection. Genet. Res. 8:269-294.

2. Maynard Smith and Haigh. 1974. The hitch-hiking effect of a favourable
gene. Genet. Res. 23: 23-35.

Understanding sequence variation
1. Begun D. J., Aquadro C. F., 1992 Levels of naturally occurring DNA
polymorphism correlate with recombination rate in Drosophila melanogaster.
Nature 356: 519-520.

2. Green R. E., Reich D., Pääbo S., 2010 A draft sequence of the
Neandertal genome. Science 328: 710-722.

Quantitative Genetics:  variation in complex traits
1. Galton F., 1877 Typical laws of heredity. Nature 15: 492-495-
512-514- 532-533.

2. Turelli M., 1984 Heritable genetic variation via
mutation-selection balance: Lerch's Zeta meets the abdominal
bristle. Theor. Popul. Biol. 25: 138-193.

Quantitative Genetics:  finding the genes
1. Shrimpton A. E., Robertson A., 1988 The Isolation of polygenic factors
controlling bristle score in Drosophila melanogaster II Distribution of
third chromosome bristle effects within chromosome sections. Genetics
118: 445-459.

2. Boyle E. A., Li Y. I., Pritchard J. K., 2017 An expanded view of
complex traits: from polygenic to omnigenic. Cell 169: 1177-1186.

Neutral Evolution
1. Kimura, M. 1968. Evolutionary rate at the molecular level. Science.
217:624-626.

2a. Kern A. D., Hahn M. W., 2018 The Neutral Theory in Light of Natural
Selection. Molecular Biology and Evolution 110: 21077-6.

2b. Jensen J. D., Payseur B. A., Stephan W., Aquadro C. F., Lynch M.,
Charlesworth D., Charlesworth B., 2018 The importance of the Neutral Theory
in 1968 and 50 years on: a response to Kern and Hahn 2018. Evolution 112:
2109-4.

2c. Ellegren & Galtier. 2016. Determinants of genetic diversity. Nature
Reviews Genetics.

Mutation and Genetic Variability
1. Luria, S. E., and M. Delbrück. 1943. Mutations of Bacteria from Virus
Sensitivity to Virus Resistance. Genetics. 28(6):491-511.

2. Hill, W G. 1982. "Rates of Change in Quantitative Traits From Fixation
of New Mutations." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.A.)
79: 142-45.

Testing for selection
1. McDonald & Kreitman. 1991. Adaptive protein evolution at the Adh locus
in Drosophila. Nature.

2. Begun, et al. Mol. Biol. Evol. 16, 1816-1819 (1999).

3. Siddiq et al. 2016. Experimental test and refutation of a classic case
of molecular adaptation in Drosophila melanogaster.  Nature Ecology &
Evolution.

The shifting balance
1. Wright, S. 1932. The roles of mutation, inbreeding, crossbreeding and
selection in evolution. Proceedings of the VI International Congress of
Genetics: 1. pp 356-366.

2. Coyne, J.A., N.H. Barton, and M. Turelli. 1997. A critique of Wright's
shifting balance theory of evolution.  Evolution 51: 643-671.

3. Barton. 2016. Sewall Wright on Evolution in Mendelian Populations and
the "Shifting Balance". Genetics.

Evolution of Sex
1.  Muller, H.J. 1964. The relation of recombination to mutational advance.
Mutation Res. 1(1):2-9

2. McDonald et al. 2016. Sex speeds adaptation by altering the dynamics of
molecular evolution. Nature.

Kin Selection, Cooperation, and Conflict
1. Hamilton, W. D. 1964. The genetical evolution of social behaviour I.
Journal of Theoretical Biology. 7:1-52.

2. Trivers, R. L. 1974 Parent-offspring conflict. American Zoologist.
14(1):249-264.

Sexual Selection
1. Zahavi, A. 1975. Mate selection - a selection of a handicap. J. Theor.
Biol. 53:205-214.

2. Kirkpatrick, M., and Ryan, M.J. 1991. The evolution of mating
preferences and the paradox of the lek. Nature. 350:33-38.

Fitness Landscapes
1. Dean, A. 1995. A Molecular Investigation of Genotype by Environment
Interactions. Genetics. 139:19-33.

2. Costanzo et al. 2010. The Genetic Landscape of a Cell. Science.

Speciation
1. Coyne, J. A., and H. A. Orr. 1989. Patterns of speciation in Drosophila.
Evolution. 43:362-381.

2. Corbett-Detig et al. 2013. Genetic incompatibilities are widespread
within species. Nature.

2.       *Marcos Antezana:*

Valen, L. v. 1975. Energy and Evolution. University of Chicago, Department
of Biology.

3.       *Remco Folkertsma:*

1. The work by Hopi Hoekstra on local adaptation and oldfield mice

2. Poelstra, J. W., Vijay, N., Bossu, C. M., Lantz, H., Ryll, B., Müller,
I., ... & Wolf, J. B. (2014). The genomic landscape underlying phenotypic
integrity in the face of gene flow in crows. Science, 344(6190), 1410-1414.

4.       *Joshka Kaufmann and Leslie Turner*

They offer us a link to 'papers every evolutionary biologist should read',
the papers are collected by Leslie Turner.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53e8cb7ce4b02c4bc3aeeee4/t/5ab8fcb670a6ad55c67fcdf4/1522072758665/EvoBioClassicsRefList.pdf

5.       *Sarah Stockwell*

Matt Ridley collected classic papers in evolutionary biology and printed
part of these papers in his book Evolution (see Matt Ridley. Evolution
(Univ. of Oxford Press, 2nd edition, 2004))

Pimp your brain: Bioinformatics

Wed, 20 Aug 2014 22:09:21 -0500

Jan Lisec from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology explains, in this "pimp your brain" episode, what bioinformatics is and why bioinformatics is so important and indispensable for biological research. In the video serial "Pimp your brain" scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology describe their research. More videos from the 'Pimp your brain' serial are available on www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-l9VItC9Gn2Ur2Xj6PTOAkjLUlVPbIOO More videos are available on www.mpimp-golm.mpg.de

NGS teaching material

Jit — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 04:29:06 -0500

High throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies are being applied to a wide range of important topics in biology. However, the analyses of non-model organisms, for which little previous sequence information is available, pose specific problems. This course addresses the specific strengths and weaknesses of alternative HTS technologies, the computational resources needed for HTS, and how to analyze non-model species using HTS. The course consists of a practical training module, HTS bioinformatics training, and lecturing/seminars of HTS approaches specifically targeting non-model organisms.

Address of the bookmark: http://marinetics.org/teaching/hts/Assembly.html

Hello Python World !

Rahul Nayak — Mon, 14 May 2018 16:41:01 -0500

As I mentioned earlier, I will keep on posting one Python script per day to introduce you to Python programming. Whether you are an experienced programmer or not, this tutorial is intended for everyone who wishes to learn the Python programming language.

Python is a very simple language, and has a very straightforward syntax. The simplest directive in Python is the "print" directive - it simply prints out a line (and also includes a newline).

Create a file Hello.py

print("Hello, Python World !.")

Run

python3 Hello.py

Bioinformatics in Africa: Part 4 - Morocco

BioStar — Sat, 06 Feb 2021 13:31:24 -0600

Bioinformatics, in the UFR in Artificial Intelligence and Bioinformatics, deals with the management, the analysis, the modelling and the visualization of biological databases. Since the size of the databases is often exponential, the traditional algorithms are not very effective when seeking for a good computational solution.

To take care of this issue, many ways are opened to the researchers to improve the quality of the algorithms:

1. Usage of new information processing methods like artificial neuronal networks, genetic algorithms, etc. 2. Usage of Data mining to explore biochemical databases,
3. Usage of Machine learning on the biological examples to solve, for example, the problem of classification in Bioinformatics.

UFR offers in addition a doctoral training in Computer Science and Bioinformatics.

Doctoral module which includes: a Diplôme des Etudes Supérieures Approfondies (DESA) of two years; and a doctorate studies program with a national Ph.D. certification. Three specializations constitute the teaching trunk of the ENSAT: Computer engineering, Telecom engineering, and electronic systems engineering.

Research Interest and Activities:

The following are the present areas of research interest:

1. Machine Learning and Profile Gene Expression of Cancer
2. Predicting Protein structure
3. Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) and multiple alignments
4. Transformational Grammar for sequence modelling
5. Physical Mapping: STSs
6. Evolutionary Computation applied to Genomic and Proteomic
7. Predicate Logic and Protein Structure

Web site and links:

http://www.ensat.ac.ma/udiab http://www.pasteur.fr/pasteur/international/annonce_coursBioinfoannonce06_casa.pdf

List of useful machine / ai learning resources !

Rahul Nayak — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 08:56:06 -0500

ML cheatsheet !

https://github.com/remicnrd/ml_cheatsheet

Visual AI / ML

https://setosa.io/ev/

Simple and efficient tools for predictive data analysis

https://scikit-learn.org/stable/

Apache server setting !

Abhi — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 04:29:51 -0500

Apache is an open source web server that’s available for Linux servers free of charge.

In this tutorial we’ll be going through the steps of setting up an Apache server.

What you’ll learn

How to set up Apache
Some basic Apache configuration

Address of the bookmark: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-and-configure-apache#3-creating-your-own-website

Seeing Theory and Learn

LEGE — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 00:31:54 -0500

Seeing Theory was created by Daniel Kunin while an undergraduate at Brown University. The goal of this website is to make statistics more accessible through interactive visualizations (designed using Mike Bostock’s JavaScript library D3.js).

Address of the bookmark: https://seeing-theory.brown.edu/

Variant Calling Resequencing-Based Genome Inference

Abhi — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 02:02:24 -0500

Variant Calling - Resequencing-Based Genome Inference

Erik Garrison
University of Tennessee Health Science Center
Workshop on Genomics - Český Krumlov
January 12, 2024

https://evomics.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Variant-calling-Workshop-on-Genomics-2024-Cesky-Krumlov.pdf

Address of the bookmark: https://evomics.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Variant-calling-Workshop-on-Genomics-2024-Cesky-Krumlov.pdf