The cell is the most fundamental unit of life. Cells in the human body are continually changing and taking on new forms. Cells have been studied for almost a century, but they remain a difficult subject to study. This includes what they do and how they change over time throughout normal health or aging, as well as how diseases like cancer are caused by changes in cellular structure.
Professor Kevin K.M. Tsia of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Hong Kong (HKU) has led an interdisciplinary team that has developed “VIA, a new computational tool that addresses current challenges in the study of normal and malignant cell transformation. VIA can uncover cryptic cell lineages and uncommon cell fates in a range of biological processes that no other tool can, revealing new light on how diseases develop.
Nature Communications has released a paper on the new technique. Some research teams in the United States and China have already begun using VIA to track and predict immune responses to diseases and immunizations, as well as the body’s response to treatments. On February 8, 2022, a press conference will be held to announce the new technology. The researchers will also demonstrate how VIA works, including exhibiting the intriguing and sophisticated process that transforms a single fertilized egg into an entirely new individual with all of the organs at a single-cell precision.
The global bioinformatics market was worth $8.6 billion in 2019 and is expected to rise to $24.7 billion by 2027, with a CAGR of 13.4% from 2020 to 2027. Bioinformatics is a field that combines biology and information technology to integrate biological data with tools for storing, distributing, and analyzing information to serve a variety of scientific fields, including biomedicine. Database construction, data management, data warehousing, data mining, and other software applications are used. Scientific discoveries are made as a result of mining such data, which is used in the study of genetics and genomes.
On the market, there are several bioinformatics tools. Protein functional and analysis tools, homology and similarity tools, sequence analysis tools, and miscellaneous tools are the four categories. Structure genomics, functional genomics, DNA microarrays, comparative genomics, and medical information are only a few of the advanced and specialized areas of life covered by this study. As a result of the aforementioned cases, the worldwide bioinformatics market share is increasing.
While most businesses suffered as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic, the bioinformatics industry, for example, has had a favorable influence. Before the COVID-19 crisis, this industry was already a fast-growing one. This is due to bioinformatics tools that can manage vast amounts of biological data, a phrase coined with the first sharing of biological sequencing data. Bioinformatics has evolved into a multidisciplinary field that is increasingly important in today’s world.
The global bioinformatics market is predicted to grow rapidly in the coming years, owing to an increase in demand for integrated data, a rise in demand for nucleic acid and protein sequencing due to lower sequencing costs, and an increase in proteomics and genomics applications.
Moreover, drug research and development, as well as government and private-sector activities, are likely to drive market expansion over the projection period. During the forecast period, however, a dearth of qualified staff, common data formats, and user-friendly tools at lower prices are expected to stymie market expansion. In contrast, an increase in the demand for integrated solutions and systems, as well as the integration of machine learning and AI in healthcare and software companies investing in the development of bioinformatics solutions, are expected to provide bioinformatics solutions, developers, with lucrative market opportunities.
