Bio-Cartographers Unite!

We like to brag about how sophisticated our computer systems have become, but we have a long way to go to match the amount of information nature has managed to pack into even simple living organisms.

Brian White

We may have mapped the human genome, but as a sage once pointed out, a map is not the territory, and we have only begun to decode what the images on this map actually mean. The amount of information is so great and the data so diverse, in fact, that a whole new field—bioinformatics—has arisen to make sense of it all.

Bioinformatics is an integration of mathematical, statistical, and computer methods to analyze biological, biochemical, and biophysical data. Bioinformatics ties together two of Rice’s key strategic thrusts—biological science and engineering and information technology—leading Rice’s Computer and Information Technology Institute (CITI) and Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering (IBB) to form a new research effort, the Rice Bio-informatics Group.

The purpose of the Rice Bioinformatics Group is to act as a nexus for various activities at Rice in the field of bioinformatics, explain Larry McIntire, the E.D. Butcher Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, chair of bioengineering, and chair of IBB, and Moshe Vardi, the Karen Ostrum George Professor in Computational Engineering, chair of computer science, and director of CITI. As is the case with any newly emerging cross-disciplinary research area, most researchers in the Rice Bio-informatics Group come from the forefronts of different fields, with different backgrounds and strengths.

“We are fortunate at Rice to have researchers in many departments doing work in this area,” Vardi says. “The new group will serve both as a means of coordinating existing activities, such as the various seminar series on campus that are pertinent to this area, and providing access to new opportunities: research collaborations, curricular development, and funding proposals.”

The Rice Bioinfor-matics Group will operate under the umbrella of both CITI and IBB, and its educational activities will be integrated with the training activities of the W.M. Keck Center for Computational Biology. “This coordination serves both an internal and an external purpose,” says McIntire. “We strengthen existing programs by relating them to each other, and we expose this strength to those looking to Rice from the outside for leadership in this area.”

The Rice Bio-informatics Group will be led by Marek Kimmel, professor of statistics, with Ross Reedstrom as executive director. The team now is forming work groups to explore future research options and opportunities. For more information, see the CITI website at http://www.citi.rice.edu/.