“精要速览系列(Instant Notes Series)”是国外教材“Best Seller”榜的上榜教材。该系列结构新颖，视角独特；重点明确，脉络分明；图表简明清晰；英文自然易懂，被国内多所重点院校选用作为双语教材。先锋版是继“现代生物学精要速览”之后推出的跨学科的升级版本。
本书是该系列中的《生物信息学》分册，全书共15章，全面系统地概括了该学科的核心内容和前沿动态，涉及生物学数据的获得与处理、系统发生学、芯片数据分析、蛋白质组数据分析、生物信息学的应用等主要内容。
本书是指导大学生快速掌握生物信息学基础知识的优秀教材，也是辅助教师授课的极佳教学参考书，同时可供生命科学相关专业的研究生参考。

Abbreviations
Preface
Section A-Overview of bioinformatics
A1 The scoe of bioinformatics
A2 Bioinformatics and the Internet
A3 Useful bioinformatics sites on the WWW
Section B- Data acquisition
B1 Sequencing DNA,RNA and proteins
B2 Determination of protein structure
B3 Gene and protein expression data
B4 Protein interaction data
Section C-Databases-contents,structure and annotation
C1 File formats
C2 Annotated sequence databases
C3 Genome and organism-specific databases
C4 Miscellaneous databases
Section D-Retrieval of biological data
D1 Data retrieval with Entrez and DBGET/LinkDB
D2 Data retrieval with SRS(sequence retrieval system)
Section E-Searching sequence databases by sequence
E1 Sequence similarity searches
E2 Amino acid substitution matrices
E3 Databases searches:FASTA and BLAST
E4 Sequence filters
E5 Iterative database searches and PSI-BLAST
Section F-Multiple sequence alignment and family relationships
F1 Multiple sequence alignment and family relationships
F2 Protein families and pattern databases
F3 Protein domain families
Section G-Phylogenetics
G1 Phylogenetics,cladistics and ontology
G2 Building phylogenetic trees
G3 Evolution of macromolecular sequences
Section H-Sequence annotation
H1 Principles of genome annotation
H2 Annotation tools and resources
Section I-Structural bioinformatics
I1 Conceptual models of protein structure
I2 The relationship of protein three-dimensional structure to protein function
I3 The evolution of protein structure and function
I4 Obtaining,viewing and analyzing structural data
I5 Structural alignment
I6 Classification of proteins of known three-dimensional structure:CATH and SCOP
I7 Introduction to protein structure prediction
I8 Structure prediction by comparative modeling
I9 Secondary structure prediction
I10 Adnanced protein structure prediction and prediction strategies
Section J-Microarray data analysis
J1 Microarray data:analysis methods
J2 Microarray data:tools and resources
J3 Sequence sampling and SAGE
Section K-Proteomic data analysis
K1 Analyzing data from 2D-PAGE gels
K2 Analyzing protein mass spectrometry data
Section L-Higher-order systems
L1 Modeling and reconstructing molecular pathways
L2 Protein interaction informatics
L3 Higher-order models
Section M-Cheminformatics in biology
M1 Conventions for representing molecular pathways
M2 Cheminformatics resources
Section N-Bioinformatics in the pharmaceutical industry
N1 Bioinformatics and drug discovery
N2 Pharmainformatics resources
Section O-Basic principles of computing in bioinformatics
O1 Running computer software
O2 Computer operating systems
O3 Software downloading and installation
O4 Database management
Further reading
Glossary
Index