The application of computational methods to solve scientific and pratical problems in genome research created a new interdisciplinary area that transcends boundaries traditionally separating genetics, biology, mathematics, physics, and computer science. Computers have been, of course, intensively used for many year~ in the field of life sciences, even before genome research started, to store and analyze DNA or proteins sequences, to explore and model the three-dimensional structure, the dynamics and the function of biopolymers, to compute genetic linkage or evolutionary processes etc. The rapid development of new molecular and genetic technologies, combined with ambitious goals to explore the structure and function of genomes of higher organisms, has generated, however, not only a huge and burgeoning body of data but also a new class of scientific questions. The nature and complexity of these questions will require, beyond establishing a new kind of alliance between experimental and theoretical disciplines, also the development of new generations both in computer software and hardware technologies, respectively. New theoretical procedures, combined with powerful computational facilities, will substantially extend the horizon of problems that genome research can ·attack with success. Many of us still feel that computational models rationalizing experimental findings in genome research fulfil their promises more slowly than desired. There also is an uncertainity concerning the real position of a 'theoretical genome research' in the network of established disciplines integrating their efforts in this field.

The application ofcomputational methods to solve scientific and practical problems in genome research created a new interdisciplinary area that transcends boundaries tradi tionally separating genetics, biology, mathematics, physics, and computer science. Com puters have, of course, been intensively used in the field of life sciences for many years, even before genome research started, to store and analyze DNA or protein sequences; to explore and model the three-dimensional structure, the dynamics, and the function of biopolymers; to compute genetic linkage or evolutionary processes; and more. The rapid development of new molecular and genetic technologies, combined with ambitious goals to explore the structure and function ofgenomes ofhigher organisms, has generated, how ever, not only a huge and exponentially increasing body of data but also a new class of scientific questions. The nature and complexity of these questions will also require, be yond establishing a new kind ofalliance between experimental and theoretical disciplines, the development of new generations both in computer software and hardware technolo gies. New theoretical procedures, combined with powerful computational facilities, will substantially extend the horizon of problems that genome research can attack with suc cess. Many of us still feel that computational models rationalizing experimental findings in genome research fulfill their promises more slowly than desired. There is also an uncer tainty concerning the real position of a "theoretical genome research" in the network of established disciplines integrating their efforts in this field.

Over 500 prokaryotic genomes have been sequenced to date, and thousands more have been planned for the next few years. While these genomic sequence data provide unprecedented opportunities for biologists to study the world of prokaryotes, they also raise extremely challenging issues such as how to decode the rich information encoded in these genomes. This comprehensive volume includes a collection of cohesively written chapters on prokaryotic genomes, their organization and evolution, the information they encode, and the computational approaches needed to derive such information. A comparative view of bacterial and archaeal genomes, and how information is encoded differently in them, is also presented. Combining theoretical discussions and computational techniques, the book serves as a valuable introductory textbook for graduate-level microbial genomics and informatics courses.

Together with early theoretical work in population genetics, the debate on sources of genetic makeup initiated by proponents of the neutral theory made a solid contribution to the spectacular growth in statistical methodologies for molecular evolution. Evolutionary Genomics: Statistical and Computational Methods is intended to bring together the more recent developments in the statistical methodology and the challenges that followed as a result of rapidly improving sequencing technologies. Presented by top scientists from a variety of disciplines, the collection includes a wide spectrum of articles encompassing theoretical works and hands-on tutorials, as well as many reviews with key biological insight. Volume 2 begins with phylogenomics and continues with in-depth coverage of natural selection, recombination, and genomic innovation. The remaining chapters treat topics of more recent interest, including population genomics, -omics studies, and computational issues related to the handling of large-scale genomic data. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular BiologyTM series format, this work provides the kind of advice on methodology and implementation that is crucial for getting ahead in genomic data analyses. Comprehensive and cutting-edge, Evolutionary Genomics: Statistical and Computational Methods is a treasure chest of state-of the-art methods to study genomic and omics data, certain to inspire both young and experienced readers to join the interdisciplinary field of evolutionary genomics.

Sequence - Evolution - Function is an introduction to the computational approaches that play a critical role in the emerging new branch of biology known as functional genomics. The book provides the reader with an understanding of the principles and approaches of functional genomics and of the potential and limitations of computational and experimental approaches to genome analysis. Sequence - Evolution - Function should help bridge the "digital divide" between biologists and computer scientists, allowing biologists to better grasp the peculiarities of the emerging field of Genome Biology and to learn how to benefit from the enormous amount of sequence data available in the public databases. The book is non-technical with respect to the computer methods for genome analysis and discusses these methods from the user's viewpoint, without addressing mathematical and algorithmic details. Prior practical familiarity with the basic methods for sequence analysis is a major advantage, but a reader without such experience will be able to use the book as an introduction to these methods. This book is perfect for introductory level courses in computational methods for comparative and functional genomics.

Computational Genomics with R provides a starting point for beginners in genomic data analysis and also guides more advanced practitioners to sophisticated data analysis techniques in genomics. The book covers topics from R programming, to machine learning and statistics, to the latest genomic data analysis techniques. The text provides accessible information and explanations, always with the genomics context in the background. This also contains practical and well-documented examples in R so readers can analyze their data by simply reusing the code presented. As the field of computational genomics is interdisciplinary, it requires different starting points for people with different backgrounds. For example, a biologist might skip sections on basic genome biology and start with R programming, whereas a computer scientist might want to start with genome biology. After reading: You will have the basics of R and be able to dive right into specialized uses of R for computational genomics such as using Bioconductor packages. You will be familiar with statistics, supervised and unsupervised learning techniques that are important in data modeling, and exploratory analysis of high-dimensional data. You will understand genomic intervals and operations on them that are used for tasks such as aligned read counting and genomic feature annotation. You will know the basics of processing and quality checking high-throughput sequencing data. You will be able to do sequence analysis, such as calculating GC content for parts of a genome or finding transcription factor binding sites. You will know about visualization techniques used in genomics, such as heatmaps, meta-gene plots, and genomic track visualization. You will be familiar with analysis of different high-throughput sequencing data sets, such as RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, and BS-seq. You will know basic techniques for integrating and interpreting multi-omics datasets. Altuna Akalin is a group leader and head of the Bioinformatics and Omics Data Science Platform at the Berlin Institute of Medical Systems Biology, Max Delbrück Center, Berlin. He has been developing computational methods for analyzing and integrating large-scale genomics data sets since 2002. He has published an extensive body of work in this area. The framework for this book grew out of the yearly computational genomics courses he has been organizing and teaching since 2015.