| Phylogenomics | Molecular Modeling | Proteomics | Ecological Modeling |
| Keith Crandall (Coordinator) |
David Busath (Coordinator) |
Craig Thulin (Coordinator) |
Shane Reese (Coordinator) |
|
Mark Clement Quinn Snell David Whiting Michael Whiting Kevin Seppi Sean Warnick |
John Bell Scott Zimmerman Randy Shirts Richard Rowley Robert Davis Douglas Henderson Dean Wheeler Matthew Asplund Barry Willardson |
Barry Willardson Mark Clement Keith Crandall Greg Burton |
Bruce Schaalje Gilbert Fellingham Alan Harker Steven Peck Dennis Shiozawa Mark Belk |
Bioinformatics is one of the hottest fields in science today. Many graduate programs are being developed across the world to train students in this area of research. These programs actively recruit highly qualified undergraduates. At BYU we have 30,000 undergraduate students of excellent quality. Many are interested in combining interests in biology and computer science. A degree program in Bioinformatics will allow them to actively pursue this interest in a straight-forward fashion. These graduates will be equally well prepared to enter graduate programs in Bioinformatics/Computational Biology or the workplace. Our mission at BYU is to serve the undergraduate students and help them prepare for a lifetime of learning. We can do this extremely effectively through the development of a Bioinformatics program to complement our new Bioinformatics Major.
Brigham Young University is well placed to provide exceptional interdisciplinary training for undergraduate students, graduate students and postdocs in the computational biosciences. We have in place world-renowned programs in chemistry and computer science, a solid group in molecular biophysics, and one of the top evolutionary biology programs in the country.
The first research focus, Phylogenomics, combines strengths in computer science, statistics, and evolutionary biology to tackle one of the outstanding problems in biology today fast estimation of complex evolutionary relationships or phylogeny. As part of this focus, we are also developing and testing methods of estimating population genetic parameters for the study of dynamics of infectious disease.
Our second focus, Molecular Modeling, combines strengths in chemistry/biochemistry, computer science, physics, and biology to explore the mechanics and dynamics of proteins, particularly as they relate to the insertion, conformational reorganizations, and functions of membrane proteins. This focus will bring the methods of computation, physical measurements, and solution biophysical chemistry to bear on key problems in biophysics, such as the mechanisms of membrane protein function, vesicle-cell membrane fusion, enzyme function, cell-signaling mechanisms, protein folding, and membrane protein insertion.
Our third program is in Proteomics, discovering protein function and interactions through informatic approaches.
Finally, our fourth program is in Ecological Modeling. Here the challenge is to model the complexity of the ecological system through the combination of computer simulation, statistics, analytical mathematics, and biology.
Two additional and less established programs are bioimaging and complex systems. Both of these areas have exceptional faculty at the beginnings of interdisciplinary associations that will be greatly facilitated by this program improvement. These exceptional programs will attract outstanding students from the physical sciences and the biological sciences for excellent and diverse cross-disciplinary research experiences and training. We will provide a collaborative training atmosphere and introduce solid, relevant courses in the biological, computer, and mathematical sciences for the undergraduate and graduate students.
Last modified: September 18, 2007. Maintained by Kit Menlove.
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