Bioinformatics is an area of study that combines biology, mathematics, computer science and statistics to understand and solve biological problems. It is an interdisciplinary field that is growing rapidly and becoming increasingly important in biological and medical research.
With the amount of biological data generated by DNA sequencing and other technologies, bioinformatics is essential for the analysis and interpretation of this data. Bioinformatics enables the discovery of new biological knowledge and helps solve practical problems, such as developing new drugs and identifying new therapies for diseases.
For these reasons, having a Bioinformaticians' day is an important way to recognise and celebrate the importance of bioinformatics in biological and medical research. In addition, this day can be used to raise awareness about bioinformatics and promote collaboration among researchers and professionals in the field.
Thus, the Brazilian Association of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology is proposing March 11 as Bioinformatics Day or Bioinformaticians and Bioinformatics Day. This date was chosen because it is the birthday of Margaret Dayhoff, a pioneer in the field, who in the 1940s used her expertise in computing to create innovative methods for the analysis of biological data. Dr Dayhoff contributed to the development of biological database systems, which allow scientists to store and share data. These contributions have been extremely important to the development of bioinformatics.
Bioinformatics Day will be an opportunity to celebrate Dr Dayhoff's contribution and to emphasise the importance of bioinformatics to society. In addition, it will be an opportunity for bioinformaticians to celebrate their achievements and come together to address future challenges.
The idea is that on this day, each year, we will do a set of activities aimed at presenting what bioinformatics is and its areas of activity. Present multidisciplinary evidence of current knowledge in bioinformatics and computational biology. Promote debates on cutting-edge issues in the field. Also, promote the Teaching of bioinformatics including innovative didactic processes, interacting with actors from state and federal educational institutes.
For this first year we are proposing an action on social media to publicize the work of researchers working in this area. So, prepare a post about your work indicating how Bioinfo helps you to go through the necessary paths to achieve the proposed objectives and mark the #DiadaBioinformatics and on the day 11 publish in your social media. Put your creativity to work! Gather your colleagues and collaborators and make a video of up to two minutes telling what is bioinformatics for you, create a jingle about your research, organize a tutorial on how some analysis tool works. Show the world the bioinformatician inside you.