Introduction to Computational Molecular Biology

Computational biology applies the power of computers to large, complex mathematical problems arising in molecular biology, especially in DNA sequencing. Setubal and Meidanis provide an overview of algorithms for computational biology as well as basic information regarding major problems. Readers interested in a particular problem will find background material on molecular biology, definition of key terms, descriptions of models, and a full sample of algorithmic results. Key theoretical computer science concepts are emphasized, such as the improvement in asymptotic running time with better algorithms, the contrast between heuristics and an algorithm with guarantees, and the difficulty posed by NP-complete problems.