Body: <p>I find that in many contexts, the terms computational biology, bioinformatics and biostatistics are often treated as functionally equivalent, and yet for students selecting PhD programs and the like the difference could be quite significant. Is there a standard or rigorous definition of these terms and the difference between them?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-06-01T07:36:01.563Z
Comments.Text: Biostatistics is clear, but there's a LOT of grey area between computational biology and bioinformatics.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Devon Ryan
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-06-01T07:48:54.787Z
Comments.Text: There are many blogs and question on this on other sites, I feel the discussions always becomes rather opinion based and semantic. Here's my personal favorite blog: http://cabbagesofdoom.blogspot.ch/2015/09/is-there-important-difference-between.html
Comments.UserDisplayName: Chris_Rands
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-06-01T09:14:48.900Z
Comments.Text: As soon as you read "biology", you can be sure there will be no accepted standard or rigorous definition ;)
Comments.UserDisplayName: bli
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-06-02T00:39:56.013Z
Comments.Text: I was afraid that this would descend into opinion rather than a having a straightforward answer - but I think this is a real issue that certainly students have no clear answer on, and should be addressed by this community.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Scott Gigante
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-06-03T01:18:16.710Z
Comments.Text: NIH has had a working definition since 2000: https://www.kennedykrieger.org/sites/default/files/research_related_files/bioinformatics-def.pdf
Comments.UserDisplayName: Saket Choudhary
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-06-04T07:50:13.393Z
Comments.Text: There's also a blog post on it [here](http://blog.fejes.ca/?p=2418)
Comments.UserDisplayName: gringer
Tags: <r><terminology><computation>
Title: Difference between computational biology, bioinformatics and biostatistics
ThreadText: # Difference between computational biology, bioinformatics and biostatistics
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2017-06-01)
  
  I find that in many contexts, the terms computational biology, bioinformatics and biostatistics are often treated as functionally equivalent, and yet for students selecting PhD programs and the like the difference could be quite significant. Is there a standard or rigorous definition of these terms and the difference between them?
  
  **Tags:** r, terminology, computation
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: Biostatistics is clear, but there's a LOT of grey area between computational biology and bioinformatics.  
  > **username_2**: There are many blogs and question on this on other sites, I feel the discussions always becomes rather opinion based and semantic. Here's my personal favorite blog: http://cabbagesofdoom.blogspot.ch/2015/09/is-there-important-difference-between.html  
  > **username_3**: As soon as you read "biology", you can be sure there will be no accepted standard or rigorous definition ;)  
  > **username_0**: I was afraid that this would descend into opinion rather than a having a straightforward answer - but I think this is a real issue that certainly students have no clear answer on, and should be addressed by this community.  
  > **username_4**: NIH has had a working definition since 2000: https://www.kennedykrieger.org/sites/default/files/research_related_files/bioinformatics-def.pdf  
  > **username_5**: There's also a blog post on it [here](http://blog.fejes.ca/?p=2418)  
  
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  ## 0 answers
  
  