An Introduction to Bioinformatics is intended to be a complete study companion for the advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate student. It is self-contained in the sense that whatever the starting point may be, the reader will gain insight into bioinformatics. Underlying the work is the belief that bioinformatics is a kind of metaphoric lens through which the entire field of biology can be brought into focus, admittedly as yet imperfect, and understood in a unified way. Reflecting the highly incomplete present state of the field, emphasis is placed on the underlying fundamentals and acquisitions of a broad and comprehensive grasp of the field as a whole.Bioinformatics is interpreted as the application of information science to biology, in which it plays a fundamental and all-pervasive role. This interpretation enables a remarkably unified view of the entire field of biology to be taken and hence offers an excellent entry point into the life sciences for those for whom biology is unfamiliar.

1 Introduction.- I Information.- 2 The nature of information.- 3 The transmission of information.- 4 Sets and combinatorics.- 5 Probability and likelihood.- 6 Randomness and complexity.- 7 Systems, networks and circuits.- II Biology.- 8 Introduction to Part II.- 9 The nature of living things.- 10 The molecules of life.- III Applications.- 11 Introduction to Part III.- 12 Genomics.- 13 Proteomics.- 14 Interactions.- 15 Metabolomics and metabonomics.- 16 Medical applications.