Current Status and Future Perspectives of Bioinformatics in Tanzania

Abstract

The main bottleneck in advancing genomics in present times is the lack of expertise in using bioinformatics tools and approaches for data mining in raw DNA sequences generated by modern high throughput technologies such as next generation sequencing. Although bioinformatics has been making major progress and contributing to the development in the rest of the world, it has still not yet fully integrated the tertiary education and research sector in Tanzania. This review aims to introduce a summary of recent achievements, trends and success stories of application of bioinformatics in biotechnology. The applications of bioinformatics in the fields such as molecular biology, biotechnology, medicine and agriculture, the global trend of bioinformatics, accessibility bioinformatics products in Tanzania, bioinformatics training initiatives in Tanzania, the future prospects of bioinformatics use in biotechnology globally and Tanzania in particular are reviewed. The paper is of interest and importance to rouse public awareness of the new opportunities that could be brought about by bioinformatics to address many research problems relevant to Tanzania and sub-Sahara Africa.

Keywords: Bioinformatics; Biotechnology; Genomics; Tanzania