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Biotechnology and the IT worlds are converging to create a new field – Bioinformatics. It is the development of tools and processes to quantify and collect data to help us study biological systems logically. In genome projects, this includes developing methods to search databases quickly, to analyze DNA sequence information, and to predict protein sequence and structure. With complete knowledge of the human genome, scientists can now systematically discover the molecular basis of human disease.

This new and exciting field is the focus of a study tour in October 2005, to help IT and software companies realise the potential of the biotechnology sector. The study tour will travel to Boston - a hotbed of innovation and creativity for genomics and bioinformatics. Boston has the world’s greatest concentration of biotechnology venture capital firms, and is home to a host of world-class biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

The UK delegation will meet with some of the most prolific companies in Bioinformatics to learn more about the future of this industry, and what they can do to become more involved in this market. They will also visit IBM and HP to look at cutting-edge computational biology research these companies are involved in, and the Broad Institute, a research collaboration of Harvard, MIT, and its affiliated hospitals.

“The technology industry spent more money and time improving first-person shooter games than the outcome in the emergency room. Think about that for a second. What we're really trying to do is get our industry focused on health care issues. We think there is a very big growth opportunity for our industry. We're not doing it just to feel good about it. You have to be patient and listen to understand the issues, but we think the opportunity is huge.” Louis Burns from Intel's Digital Health Group

Convergence Of Information Technology

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