<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>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-01T07:36:01.563Z
Biostatistics is clear, but there's a LOT of grey area between computational biology and bioinformatics.
Devon Ryan
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-01T07:48:54.787Z
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
Chris_Rands
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-01T09:14:48.900Z
As soon as you read "biology", you can be sure there will be no accepted standard or rigorous definition ;)
bli
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-02T00:39:56.013Z
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.
Scott Gigante
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-03T01:18:16.710Z
NIH has had a working definition since 2000: https://www.kennedykrieger.org/sites/default/files/research_related_files/bioinformatics-def.pdf
Saket Choudhary
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-04T07:50:13.393Z
There's also a blog post on it [here](http://blog.fejes.ca/?p=2418)
gringer
<r><terminology><computation>
Difference between computational biology, bioinformatics and biostatistics
# 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

