Why Biology and Code are a Match Made in Heaven

Using Python to find the ori region of the E. coli genome

Illustration by Icons 8 from Ouch!

Did you know that almost half of all marriages in the US end in divorce? The union between biology and code is not one of those marriages, and I’ll have proven it to you by the end of this article.

In an earlier piece, I looked for DnaA boxes within the ori region of V. cholerae. But what if we don’t know where ori is in the genome?

The secret lies in transmuting bio-knowledge into code-based solutions.

(This article assumes you have a comfortable grasp on Python and DNA replication.)

“Let’s talk about DNA replication, bay-bee!” — Salt-N-Pepa, 1990.

Bacteria replicate their genomes asymmetrically.

• Half is copied continuously: DNA polymerase strings together nucleotides without taking any breaks.
• The other half is copied discontinuously: Many short segments of DNA are synthesized, then stitched together to form a continuous strand.