Bioinformatics: A new arsenal in dental sciences

Abstract

Bioinformatics is an emerging field that focuses on using information science to solve biological problems. It is mainly concerned with collecting, storing, retrieving and analysing data from databases. In the last decade it has catalysed the research in the field of healthcare to a great extent. Bioinformatics can aid the research in dentistry by understanding the underlying pathways and mechanisms in certain oral diseases. It can also help in early prediction and personalized treatment of cancer. Application of Bioinformatics in drug design has been a boon to the pharmaceutical companies reducing the time required to develop a novel drug. It can also assist in developing patient care databases, image Processing of X-rays and CT can supplement the diagnosis. In this era of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, incorporation of these technologies into dental sciences can improve the research, diagnosis and treatment to a great extent.

Bioinformatics: A New Tool in Dentistry

“…MSA is more beneficial than PSA as it considers multiple members of a sequence family and thus provides more biological information. Proteins are key biological molecules that carry structural and functional information therefore sequence alignment at amino acid level is more relevant [2].…”

“…Factors such as population subdivision, migration, and changing population size impact the tree. Forces such as recombination, mutation, and selection impact the genetic data of a given tree [2].…”

“…It is an interdisciplinary field requiring in-depth understanding of biological systems, algorithms and statistics. Bioinformatics incorporates the concepts of machine learning, artificial intelligence and neural networks to analyse biological data to provide useful results and conclusions [2]. to biology and medicine that are already flowing from it.…”

Understanding Emergency Room Visits for Nontraumatic Oral Health Conditions in a Hospital Serving Rural Appalachia: Dental Informatics Study

“…Dental informatics can assist in patient care [ 22 ] with new methods grounded in machine learning that can be used in the detection of teeth, caries, restored teeth, dental crowns, dental implants, prostheses for dentofacial deformities [ 23 ], oral pathology [ 24 ], oral cancer screening [ 25 ], and endodontic treatment[ 26 ]. Dental informatics has phenomenal potential in evaluating public health initiatives, and it could be used for the assessment of health goals achievements [ 26 ] as well as in education [ 27 ]; however, it has functional limitations resulting from medical and dental patient care not being stored in the same system.…”