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For nonbiologists, in vitro means "in glass," that is, in the test tube; in vivo means "in
life," that is, in a living organism. The term in silico stems from the fact that most
computer chips are made primarily of silicon. Personally, I prefer a term such as in
algorithmo, since there are plenty of ways to compute that don't involve silicon, such as
the intriguing processes of DNA computing, quantum computing, optical computing, and
more.
The large amount of biological data available online has brought biological research to a
situation somewhat similar to physics and astronomy. Those sciences have found that
experiments in modern equipment produce huge amounts of data, and the computer isn't
only invaluable but necessary for exploring the data. Indeed, it's become possible to
simulate experiments entirely in the computer. For instance, an early use of computer
simulation in physics was in modeling the acoustics of a concert hall and then
experimenting with the results by changing the design of the hall—clearly a much
cheaper way to experiment than by building dozens of concert halls!
A similar trend has been occurring in biology since computers were first invented, but
this trend has sharply accelerated in recent years with the Human Genome Project and the
sequencing of the DNA of many organisms. The experimental data that has to be
collected, searched, and analyzed is often far too large for the unaided biologist, who is
now forced to rely on computers to manage the information.
Beyond the storage and retrieval of biological data, it's now possible to study living
systems through computer simulation. There are standard and accepted studies done
routinely on computers that access the genes of humans and of several other organisms.
When the sequence of some DNA is determined, it can be stored in the computer, and
programs can be written to identify restriction sites, perform restriction digests and create
restriction maps (see Chapter 9). Similarly, gene-finding programs can take sequenced
DNA and identify putative exons and introns. (Not perfectly, as of this writing, and
results differ for different organisms.) Models of cellular processes exist in which it is
possible to study for example, the effect of a change in the regulation of a gene.
Today, microarray technology (incorporating glass slides spotted with thousands of
samples that can be probed, usually with the aid of robotics) can assess the levels of
expression of thousands of genes with one laboratory run. Computers are helping to
unravel the complex interactions between genes. We hope to find, for example, all sets of
genes related by virtue of their protein products as part of a biochemical pathway in the
cell. Microarrays generate a large volume of data. This data needs to be stored, compared
with other experimental data, and analyzed on the computer.
On my first day as a programmer at Bell Labs Research, my boss told me that his
simulations could now be computed so fast—overnight—that it was creating a problem
for him. There wasn't enough time to think about the last simulation! Nevertheless, and
despite all the attendant headaches and pitfalls of computers, their use to simulate
experiments is proving to be beneficial in biology.
1.4 Limits to Computation