Reverse translational bioinformatics: a bioinformatics assay of age, gender and clinical biomarkers

In bioinformatics, clinical data is rarely used. Here, we propose using bedsidedata in basic research, via bioinformatics methodologies. To demonstrate the potential of this so called Reverse Translational Bioinformatics approach, classical bioinformatics tools were applied to blood biomarker information attained from a large scale, open-access cross sectional survey. The results of this analysis include a novel classification of blood biomarkers, critical ages in which basic biological processes may shift in humans, and a possible approach to exploring the gender specificity of these shifts. Changes in normal values were also shown to be non-linear, with most of the non-linearity attributed to the shift from growth to maturity. Together, these finding demonstrate that reversed translational bioinformatics may contribute to basic research.