[BiO BB] Bioinformatics Project / Science Fair

[Tarak Upadhyaya]

Hello. My name is Tarak Upadhyaya. I am currently a sophomore at Southside 
High School [Located in Greenville, SC], enrolled in the in the 
International Baccalaureate (IB) Program. I came across your webpage on 
bioinformatics and I am looking for some help.

Not too long ago, I didn't know that bioinformatics even existed. But,
what I did know was that I wanted to enter a field of study that would
combine the incredible proccesses of molecular biology/genetics with the 
power and utter joy of computer science. Now that I know that there is a 
branch of science, a relatively new branch of science, that deals with what 
I have just mentioned, I am extremely overjoyed.

To learn more about bioinformatics, I have decided to do a science fair
project. I believe that since bioinformatics is a relatively new field,
there is great opportunity to be innovative and successful.  That's what I 
would like to do.  I have my mind set on what I want to do in terms of 
computer science. I want to write a neural network to do the advanced 
calculations that might be required for this project. I am currently reading 
into neural network theory. I am also looking for informative resources on 
bioinformatics and neural network implementations.

Although neural networks is an imporant part of my project, I can use all 
the ideas/information I could get. Please send me any ideas, or your point 
of view - even if you don't specialize in neural networks. The areas I would 
find interesting are evolution, genetics, mutations, reactions, brain 
functioning, chaos theory, or any other biological process at the molecular 
level.  What I know about some of these areas may be very limited, but I 
know that they are VERY interesting.

Another thing. Since I am in the very early stages of brainstorming, the 
neural network thing doesn't have to stay. If there are other more 
advanced/efficient ways of sorting through data or predicting results, let 
me know. I want to write it myself though (c++ is the language I'm most 
familar w/ btw, and the one I would want to use).

-Tarak Upadhyaya

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