Big Data and Network Biology

With the data deluge caused by the recent high throughput experiments in molecular biology emerged the popular topics such as big data biology and network biology aiming at understanding life as a system by integrating and applying knowledge and facilities of different branches of science including mathematics, physics, statistics, chemistry, computer science, and information technology. Naturally, the spectrum of topics under big data and network biology is widespread and the present special issue is not an exhaustive representation of the subject. Nonetheless the articles selected for this special issue represent recent trends and versatile knowledge concerning the title topic, that we have the pleasure of sharing with the readers. Data-intensive sciences like contemporary biology consist of three basic activities: capture, curation, and analysis. Being in the bioinformatics domain, this special issue mainly focuses on analysis; that is, it contains articles about novel tools and methodologies for data analysis and mining and review articles describing databases, tools, and algorithms useful for curation and analysis of biological data.