Genomics Glossary for Bioinformatics | Discovering the Genome

algorithm	a sequence of instructions/actions to solve some problem
biodiversity	the variety and variability of living things in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem
bioengineering	the application of life sciences, physical sciences, mathematics and engineering principles and techniques to problems in medicine and biology
bioinformaticians	scientists with multidisciplinary training in computer science and biology who are equipped to answer important biological questions based on analyzing and interpreting huge biological-based datasets
bioinformatics	a field in biology where scientists collect, analyze, and interpret biological data to further human understanding of biological systems
byte	a unit of memory size
database	an organized collection of information that can be accessed, managed, and updated
gene	a unit of DNA that controls specific traits
genome	all the DNA in an organism
genomics	the study of a large number of genes and their interactions and/or of entire genomes (all of the DNA in an organism) to learn what kind of information is coded in these DNA sequences and how the DNA instructions are carried out
omics datasets	informally refers to the data of some field of study in biology ending in -omics, such as genomics, proteomics or metabolomics; “omics” implies a large or genome-wide scale
programming	creating a sequence of instructions/actions from a fixed set of allowed instructions/actions to solve a problem
programming language	a formal syntax to communicate instructions to a machine
promoters	a section of DNA where RNA polymerase can bind to initate transcription
reference genome	The entire genome sequence of the organism from which we collected our RNA samples
sequence motif	a particular string of nucleotides whose pattern is repeated at least once in a long string that is related to the function of a gene
string	a sequence of one or more letters
transcription	the process in which information in a strand of DNA is decoded into a messenger RNA molecule