From the elucidation and analysis of a genomic sequence to the prediction of a protein structure and the identification of the molecular function, Introduction to Bioinformatics describes the rationale and limitations of the bioinformatics methods and tools that can help solve biological problems. The author addresses the ways to store and retrieve biological data, decrypt information encoded by genomes, and detect and exploit the evolutionary and functional relationships among biological elements. The book also includes material on proteomics that is not found in any other basic bioinformatics textbook. It concludes with a discussion of the future of bioinformatics.