Lexiang Ji Received the Ying Xu Award
Dr. Lexiang Ji of Dr. Robert Schmitz’ lab earned this year’s Ying Xu Award for his paper, ” TET-mediated epimutagenesis of the Arabidopsisthaliana methylome “
Tao Sheng Successfully Defends Dissertation
Tao Sheng successfully defended his dissertaion, “Integration of transcriptomic and high frequency telemetry data via Machine learning methods,” on April 16, 2019.
Congratulations Dr. Sheng!
Jin Wang Successfully Defends Dissertation
Jin Wang successfully defended her dissertation, “Proliferative and Invasive Colorectal Tumors in Pet Dogs,” on April 10, 2019
Congratulations Dr. Wang!
IOB Retreat 2019- Dawg Team Frenchie takes the win!
Team Frenchie takes Gold at this year’s IOB Retreat– Please congratulate them on excellent teamwork and sportsmanship during the IOB Team Building Sessions.
IOB Graduate Student Corey Schultz wins 2019 Innovative and Interdisciplinary Research Grant
Corey Schultz, Bioinformatics PhD student and member of Dr. Jason Wallace’s lab, earned an Innovative and Interdisciplinary Research Grant awarded by the Graduate School for his research on endophyte interactions with maize.
Zheng Ruan earns Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award
Zheng Ruan earned his Ph.D. in bioinformatics in 2018, delving deeply into how signaling proteins work in both normal and disease states. Using an interdisciplinary approach that combined bioinformatics, biochemistry and cell biology, he uncovered the mechanisms by which cancer mutations alter cell signaling functions. Ruan pursued a unique research strategy by generating hypotheses from computational structural modeling and designing detailed experiments to test these hypotheses. His approach allowed him to answer fundamental questions in cancer genomics and structural bioinformatics. Ruan’s work has generated tremendous interest in the signaling field and will contribute to the understanding and treatment of human cancer. As a postdoctoral researcher at the Van Andel Institute in Michigan, he is studying large macromolecular ion channel proteins using single particle cryo-EM techniques, a rapidly evolving area that has the potential for major breakthroughs.
Dr. Alexander Bucksch receives NSF Early Career Award!
Dr. Alexander Bucksch receives the NSF Early Career Award:
The phenotypic spectrum: Quantifying new patterns of architecture variation in crop roots
ABSTRACT
Plant roots are remarkably diverse in size and shape. It is not fully understood how the diversity in root architecture contributes to crop yields or plant biomass in part because roots are buried underground and difficult to study. This research takes a quantitative approach to analyze the wide diversity of root architectures. Bean roots grown under experimental conditions will be imaged and the resulting data will be used to create new mathematical and computational tools to discern causes of root variability. Combined with genomic information, the analytical tools will identify genetic elements underlying root shapes in response to environmental and genetic variation. The research will point to new opportunities for breeding targets in crops such as bean and extended to maize. The research also couples with an education program that integrates computation with plant research, thus addressing the critical national need for a computationally trained plant science workforce. The novel tools will be publicly available and deployed using national cyberinfrastructure: further the technologies will be integrated into two courses that enable basic science and computational biology within an experiential learning environment. A new student award is implemented through the Plant Center and the Georgia Informatics Institute to highlight advances attained by working at the computational and plant science interface. Together, the integration of science and education sets forth a path for fast dissemination of results into breeding programs.
IOB Advisory Committe: First Meeting at IOB Retreat | APR 6th, 2019
The IOB Advisory Committee will have their first meeting at the IOB Retreat 2019, Lake Lanier Legacy Lodge on April 6th, 2019.
For a full list of IOB Advisory Committee members please visit the IOB webpage.
Improving Public Health
JESSICA C. KISSINGER
DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE OF BIOINFORMATICS AND DISTINGUISHED RESEARCH PROFESSOR OF GENETICS
Around the world, researchers are racing to stop the spread of deadly diseases such as malaria. As they generate and record data about a disease, UGA’s Jessica Kissinger and her colleagues work to make that information findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable by the global research community for free. How does building a database fight disease? Data help researchers construct and test their ideas about how to create treatments or map out ways to halt the spread of disease. In a nutshell, her work helps save time and hastens the discovery process for the next possible solution or cure.
“These are tools by biologists for biologists … being a member of a community, having your finger on the pulse of what’s going on, allows us to keep the tools relevant and useful.”