用计算机网络和数据库收集、组织和分析大量的生物数据。历史上生物信息学涉及基因序列和其产物蛋白质的分析，但是该领域已经扩展到从基因组学、蛋白组学、药物筛选和药物化学中获得的大量资料的管理、处理、分析和形象化。 生物信息学还包括对从这些学科中得到的不断膨胀的数据库的整合与挖掘。一个企业范围的生物信息学方法包括一个内部数据库系统，与外界数据库的输入与连接，中间层面软件向研究者描述感兴趣的生物研究对象，演绎层面提供分析和研究工具，用户层面使用者可以以各种方式接近、整合、操作和看到数据。

The collection, organization and analysis of large amounts of biological data, using networks of computers and databases. Historically, bioinformatics concerned itself with the analysis of the sequences of genes and their products (proteins), but the field has since expanded to the management, processing, analysis and visualization of large quantities of data from genomics, proteomics, drug screening and medicinal chemistry. Bioinformatics also includes the integration and “mining” (detailed searching) of the ever-expanding databases of information from these disciplines. An enterprise wide bioinformatics solution includes an internal database system, feeds and links to external (public, collaborative) databases, a middle tier of software that defines the biological objects of interest to the researcher, an algorithm tier where the analysis and mining tools reside, and a user tier where the user can access, integrate, manipulate and visualize the data in a variety of ways.