Canal-U

1.1. The cell, atom of the living world

Welcome to this introduction to bioinformatics. We will speak of genomes and algorithms. More specifically, we will see how genetic information can be analysed by algorithms. In these five weeks to come, we will see first, what are these genomic texts, we will try to analyse using algorithms and programs. We will then speak of genes and proteins. Proteins being coded by genes. We will study and design algorithms to predict genes on the DNA sequences or genomic texts. We will study, more deeply, an algorithm to compare genomic sequences. And we will use this algorithm to reconstruct phylogenetic trees that is to say the evolution of species over time. During this first week, we will speak of genomic texts and we will see how algorithms can deal with these texts. First, we will see what most often is called "the atom of the living world" that is the cell. What is a cell? The first scientist who spoke of the cells was Robert Hooke, in 1667. Robert Hooke saw the walls of the cells, not the cell itself because he studied with a microscope of his own design, a very thin slice of cork. And within this slice, what he did see is this very tiny space.Like this or this. And he decided that this tiny space looked like monk cells and then the term cell remained.