What is bioinformatics and why is it important in biotechnology?

Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field that combines biology, computer science, mathematics, and statistics to analyze and interpret biological data, particularly large-scale molecular data like DNA, RNA, and protein sequences. It is important in biotechnology because it enables: analysis of genomic and proteomic data, identification of drug targets, prediction of protein structure and function, understanding evolutionary relationships, and managing vast amounts of biological data generated by modern techniques like next-generation sequencing.