News

Tanin Rajamand Selected to Blue Key Honor Society

Tanin Rajamand Selected to Blue Key Honor Society First year PhD Student Tanin Rajamand was chosen for membership into the University of Georgia Chapter of Blue Key Honor Society. Blue Key is one of the oldest and most prestigious honor societies at the University. It recognizes students of outstanding character and ability ...

Kun-Lin Ho Successfully Defends Dissertation

Kun-Lin Ho of Dr. Shaying Zhao's lab successfully defended his dissertation titled, "Discovering Canine Cancer-Associated Somatic Mutations in WES, WGS, and RNA-SEQ" on Monday, November 13, 2023. Congratulations Dr. Ho! ...

Mandy Sullivan Successfully Defends Dissertation

Mandy Sullivan of Dr. Travis Glenn’s lab successfully defended his dissertation titled, “Mining Mixtures: Approaches to Enrich and Detect Pathogen Sequences in Complex Samples to Improve Public Health.” on Friday, November 3, 2023. Congratulations Dr. Sullivan! ...

Hanxia Li Successfully Defends Dissertation

Hanxia Li of Dr. Jason Wallace's lab successfully defended his dissertation titled, ""Understanding plant-microbe interactions for improving agriculture." on Tuesday, October, 2023. Congratulations Dr. Li! ...

Safal Shrestha Successfully Defends Dissertation

Safal Shrestha of Dr. Natarajan Kannan’s lab successfully defended his dissertation titled, “Elucidating the Understudied Fructosamine-3-Kinase (FN3K) Family: A Combined Experimental and Computational Study on Structure, Function, Evolution, and Regulation” on Monday, October 30, 2023. Congratulations Dr. Shrestha! ...

Karen J. Gonzalez Successfully Defends Dissertation

Karen Gonzalez of Dr. Eva-Maria Strauch's lab successfully defended her dissertation titled, "Computational Vaccine Design of Class I Fusion Proteins" on Thursday, September 21, 2023. Congratulations Dr. Gonzalez! ...

Abigail E. Moore Successfully Defends Dissertation

Abby Moore of Dr. Art Edison's lab successfully defended her dissertation, "Spreadsheets enable the provenance of biological material to mutually benefit authors and the scientific community.” on Friday, August 25, 2023. Congratulations Dr. Moore! ...

Congratulations to Kun-Lin Ho for winning outstanding research poster!

Please join the IOB in congratulating Kun-Lin Ho for being selected by the UGA-Winship Research Summit committee as one of two poster presentation winners from UGA. Kun-Lin is focused on cancer research and is mentored by IOB faculty member Dr. Shaying Zhou ...

Jingxuan Chen Successfully Defends Dissertation

Jingxuan Chen of Dr. Casey Bergman's lab successfully defended her dissertation, “Bioinformatics and evolutionary genomics of transposable elements in yeast” on Thursday, June 29, 2023. Congratulations Dr. Chen! ...

Joshua Watson Successfully Defends his Dissertation!

Joshua Watson of Dr. Shaying Zhao's lab successfully defended his dissertation titled, "Human basal-like breast cancer is represented by one of the two mammary tumor subtypes in dogs." on Friday, April 14, 2023. Congratulations Dr. Watson! ...

Dr. Natarajan Kannan receives Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award- Congratulations Dr. Kannan!

Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award Natarajan Kannan, professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Institute of Bioinformatics, leads an internationally recognized program at the interface of bioinformatics and biochemistry. Developing and applying sophisticated statistical and computational tools, he maps the complex relationships connecting sequence, structure, function ...

Ehsan Suez receives 2023 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award

IOB doctoral student Ehsan Suez has earned a 2023 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award from the Center for Teaching and Learning for superior teaching skills ...

Ruijie (Rachel) Xu Successfully Defends Dissertation!

Ruijie (Rachel) Xu of Dr. Liliana Salvador's lab successfully defended her dissertation, “Using Multi-Omics Data to Study Leptospira sp. Across Multiple Biological Scales” on Friday, April 7th, 2023. Congratulations Dr. Xu! ...

IOB graduate student Karen Gonzalez wins 12th Annual UGA 3MT™ Competition- Congratulations Karen!

April 6, 2023 Thank you to all the students who participated in this year’s University of Georgia Three Minute Thesis (3MT™) Competition. The competition is open to all currently enrolled UGA master’s and doctoral students, and this year’s 3MT™ drew dozens of submissions from across the university. Several preliminary heats ...

Lambodhar Damodaran Successfully Defends Dissertation

Lambodhar Damodaran of Dr. Justin Bahl's lab successfully defended his dissertation, "Molecular Epidemiology of Contemporary Seasonal Influenza Epidemics” on Thursday, March 16th, 2023. Congratulations Dr. Damodaran! ...

Noah Legall Successfully Defends Dissertation

Noah Legall of Dr. Liliana Salvador's lab successfully defended his dissertation, "Computational techniques for unraveling the genomic variations of Mycobacterium bovis across organizational scales” on Tuesday, March 14th, 2023. Congratulations Dr. Legall!     ...

Congratualtions to Dr. Leidong Mao for being elected into National Academy of Inventors

 INNOVATION | FEBRUARY 15, 2023 Three professors elected into National Academy of Inventors By Brandon Ward (L to R) Leidong Mao, Christine Szymanski and Hitesh Handa Christine Szymanski, Hitesh Handa and Leidong Mao were selected for their proven ability to invent and innovate The National Academy of Inventors has selected three University of ...

IOB Director and IOB Faculty Awarded: CDC funds for Pathogen Genomics Center of Excellence

CDC funds Pathogen Genomics Center of Excellence November 18, 2022 by Lauren Baggett The new Georgia-based Pathogen Genomics Center of Excellence aims to strengthen response to infectious disease threats and support public health workforce development. The team will be led by Rebecca Hutchins (left) with the Georgia Tech Research Institute, Tonia ...

Jiani Chen and Michael Francis Successfully Defend Dissertation

Jiani Chen of Dr. Justin Bahl's lab successfully defended her dissertation, "Using computational and statistical strategies to study the evolution and epidemiology of Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus” on Wednesday, November 16, 2022. Congratulations Dr. Chen!     Michael Francis of Dr. Kaixiong Ye's lab successfully defended his dissertation, “Nutrigenetics of ...

Karen Gonzalez receives American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) Graduate Student Fellowship 2023

Please join me in congratulating Karen Gonzalez on receiving the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) Graduate Student Fellowship 2023!     ...

Lasya Penumarthi receives George Hugh Boyd Memorial Scholarship

Please join me in congratulating Lasya Penumarthi on being selected as one of the recipients the George Hugh Boyd Memorial Scholarship for the 2022-2023 academic year ...

Holly Bik receives NSF Career award

Holly Bik, assistant professor in the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Science department of marine sciences with a joint appointment in UGA’s Institute of Bioinformatics, has received a grant from the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) to study the biodiversity, evolution, and ecology of free-living ...

UGA Research Awards | Congratulations to Dr. Bensasson!

Creative Research Medal Douda Bensasson, associate professor in the Department of Plant Biology, has pioneered a new understanding that wild plant environments serve as reservoirs for a common fungal pathogen of humans. Her laboratory discovered that old oak trees harbor Candida albicans, which is responsible for potentially lethal yeast bloodstream infections ...

Wayland Yeung Successfully Defends Dissertation

Wayland Yeung of Dr. Natarajan Kannan's lab has successfully defended his dissertation titled, "Traditional representation learning approaches for protein sequence analysis" on Friday, April 15, 2022. Congratulations Dr. Yeung! ...

Yuan Feng Successfully Defends Dissertation

Yuan Feng of Dr. Shaying Zhao's lab has successfully defended his dissertation, “Canine MHC-I Genotyping and Diversity Landscape” on Wednesday, April 13, 2022. Congratulations Dr. Feng! ...

Michael Skaro Successfully Defends Dissertation

Michael Skaro of Dr. Jonathan Arnold's lab had successfully defended his dissertation, "Applications of machine learning in omics and computer vision" on Monday, April 11, 2022. Congratulations Dr. Skaro! ...

Dr. Jessica Kissinger elected AAAS Fellow!

 AWARDS & HONORS | JANUARY 27, 2022 Three UGA faculty elected as AAAS Fellows By Ian Bennett (L to R) Patricia Yager, Jessica Kissinger, James E. Byers. Three University of Georgia faculty have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In a tradition stretching back to 1874, these individuals are ...

Dr. Ying Xu elected a 2022 IEEE Fellow

Bioinformatics Professor Ying Xu has been elected as a 2022 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Fellow for contributions to knowledge discovery from biological data. University of Georgia professor elected a 2022 IEEE Fellow ...

Xu Tan Successfully Defends Dissertation

Xu Tan of Dr. Andrew Paterson's lab has successfully defended his dissertation, "Comprehensive analysis of resistance gene evolution, structural variation and recent genome rearrangement in plant genomes" on Wednesday, December 15, 2021. Congratulations Dr. Tan! ...

Dr. Liliana Salvador, Infectious Diseases & Institute of Bioinformatics, Receives Award from Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the U.S. Department of Agriculture

Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have awarded a total of $1.25 million to 10 multidisciplinary teams of early career scientists — including Liliana Salvador, Infectious Diseases & Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Georgia — in the first year of the Scialog: Mitigating Zoonotic Threats ...

Shunhua Han Successfully Defends Dissertation

Shunhua Han of Dr. Casey Bergman’s lab has successfully defended his dissertation, “Novel computational strategies for the analysis of transposable elements in Drosophila cell culture genomes.” on Friday, November 19, 2021. Congratulations Dr. Han! Shunhua Han (far left) celebrates with his major professor and IOB students ...

Xunan ‘Sara’ Shen Successfully Defends Dissertation

Sara Shen of Dr. Art Edison’s lab has successfully defended her dissertation, "Characterization of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Using Metabolomics” on Tuesday, November 16, 2021. Congratulations Dr. Shen! ...

Yinwen Zhang Successfully Defends Dissertation

Yinwen Zhang of Dr. Bob Schmitz’ lab has successfully defended her dissertation, “Origination, Distribution, and Implication of Spontaneous Epialleles” on Friday, November 12, 2021. Congratulations Dr. Zhang! ...

IOB Faculty News | Alexander Bucksch, NSF Research News: Adapting plant roots to a hotter planet could help ease pressure on food supply

Research News Supercomputer-powered 3D imaging of roots helps develop climate change-adapted plants Composite artwork of a photograph and a reconstructed 3D model of the same maize root. Credit and Larger Version November 3, 2021 The shoots of plants get all the glory, with their fruit and flowers and visible structure ...

Dr. Kannan: New UGA study maps the structural diversity of sugar building enzymes using AI

Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - 10:22am By:Alan Flurry Sugars in our bodies, and in nearly all living organisms, are synthesized and built by a large family of proteins called Glycosyltransferases (GTs) that adopt unique three-dimensional structures and folds to perform a diverse array of cellular functions. Understanding the structure and ...

UGA’s Art Edison is co-principal investigator of $40M NSF grant for NMR network

Science & Technology UGA part of $40M grant for NMR network June 16, 2021 GRA Eminent Scholar Arthur Edison in the NMR Facility at the CCRC. (Photo by Andrew Davis Tucker/UGA) UGA's Art Edison is co-principal investigator for the NSF-funded project Researchers all over the world will have access to ...

Kannan receives $2M NIH MIRA award

 BIOLOGY | MARCH 16, 2021 By Alan Flurry (Photo by Dorothy Kozlowski) University of Georgia faculty member Natarajan Kannan is a recipient of a highly prestigious Maximizing Investigator Research Award, or MIRA, from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The MIRA award is intended to provide investigators with greater stability and flexibility in funding ...

Dr. Walter Lorenz joint publication: Fc γ receptor IIIa/CD16a processing correlates with the expression of glycan-related genes in human natural killer cells

Dr. Walter Lorenz joint publication: Fc γ receptor IIIa/CD16a processing correlates with the expression of glycan-related genes in human natural killer cells. To read the full article please click HERE ...

Glenn named new Institute of Bioinformatics Director

 CAMPUS NEWS | JANUARY 4, 2021 By Ashley Crain Travis Glenn, professor of environmental health science in the College of Public Health, has been appointed the new director of the university’s Institute of Bioinformatics. Taking over Jan. 1, Glenn said he is honored to step into this new role and eager to see what ...

Liang-Chin Huang publishes paper in BMC Bioinformatics!

Congratualtions Liang-Chin! Quantitative Structure–Mutation–Activity Relationship Tests (QSMART) model for protein kinase inhibitor response prediction Liang-Chin Huang, Wayland Yeung, Ye Wang, Huimin Cheng, Aarya Venkat, Sheng Li, Ping Ma, Khaled Rasheed & Natarajan Kannan BMC Bioinformatics volume 21, Article number: 520 (2020) ...

Online Seminar by IOB PhD Student David Montgomery | Friday AUG 14th starting at 1:30PM

David Montgomery Graduate Student, Institute of Bioinformatics Woods Research Lab Complex Carbohydrate Research Center     IOB graduate student, David Montgomery, will give a online seminar on:  Title: “Finally, a New Approach to Annotating and Finding Carbohydrates in the PDB " Date: Friday, August 14th, 2020 at 1:30pm To register please ...

UGA REU Symposium, Friday July 24th starting at 9AM

REU Symposium - 2020 @ UGA  July 24th, 2020 starting at 9AM ...

Dr. Jessica Kissinger receives Fulbright Global Scholar Award!

Dr. Jessica Kissinger receives a Fulbright Global Scholar Award to work with Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Congratulations Dr. Kissinger! ...

Michael Francis, Xiao Qui, and Michael Skaro receive 2020 Research & Scholarship Grants!

Congrats to Xiao Qiu and Michael Skaro for receiving 2020 Innovative and Interdisciplinary Research Grants from the graduate school and to Michael Francis for the 2020 Communication of Research and Scholarship Grant. Thank you for representing IOB with your applications! ...

IOB Academic News & Events | week of APR 3rd, 2020

To download a PDF of this news letter click HERE Research News: David Montgomery: COVID-19 collaboration submitted to PLOS Pathogens. The title is: "Glycosaminoglycan binding motif at S1/S2 proteolytic cleavage site on spike glycoprotein may facilitate novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) host cell entry".   Dr. Justin Bahl interviewed on COVID-19: New York ...

Dr. Justin Bahl interviewed on NPR to discuss mutational patterns of COVID-19

IOB faculty member, Dr. Justin Bahl, was recently interviewed on NPR to discuss mutational patterns of the coronavirus.  Please see the links below details. https://www.npr.org/2020/03/26/822107691/the-coronavirus-is-mutating-relatively-slowly-which-may-be-good-news https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/25/820998549/the-coronavirus-is-mutating-but-that-may-not-be-a-problem-for-humans ...

IOB Academic News & Events | week of MAR 26th, 2020

On-line Seminar: On April 10th 2020 the IPPN - 'Imaging for phenotyping'-working group will have its 10th online webinar at 10:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada) and at 16.00 PM Central European Summer Time. NB: To enable you to interact now all conferences/ international travels are cancelled because of ...

@UGAResearch publishes article on the IOB Symposium

 HEALTH | MARCH 23, 2020 Bioinformatics symposium held online By Allyson Mann  UGA’s Institute of Bioinformatics explored Collective Behavior while practicing social distancing, holding its spring symposium online March 20. The decision to go online was an easy one, according to Jonathan Arnold, professor of genetics and co-chair of the event. He’d been following the ...

IOB’s first ever Virtual Symposium a success!

IOB’s first ever Virtual Symposium was a huge success. A BIG thank you to our Keynote Speakers, Dr. Jonathan Arnold and Everyone who tuned in today!  ...

IOB Symposium on Collective Behavior switched to on-line ONLY model!

We are sending a quick updated to the IOB community about the upcoming IOB Symposium scheduled to be held at the University of Georgia Conference Center & Hotel. The IOB Leadership Team has assessed the Novel Coronavirus situation and out an abundance of caution for everyone's health & safety, the ...

IOB Academic News & Events | week of MAR 5th, 2020

Please follow the link(s) below to view each publication: In silico identification of potential inhibitors against human 2’-5’- oligoadenylate synthetase (OAS) proteins Emerging roles of the αC‐β4 loop in protein kinase structure, function, evolution, and disease Cataloguing the dead: breathing new life into pseudokinase research To REGISTER for the IOB Symposium ...

IOB Students win 2nd place in Capturing Science Contest 2019

A BIG congratulations to Micheal Francis and Sohyun Bang for winning second place at the University Libraries Capturing Science Contest! Name: Michael Francis Year: Third-year PhD Major: Bioinformatics Name: Sohyun Bang Year: First-year PhD Major: Integrated Life Sciences Submission: The Music of Life - Musical Composition Prize: $350 Commentary: In their entry “Music of Life”, Michael Francis and Sohyun Bang take the code of living things and ...

Dr. Kannan Receives NIH Funding to Develop Cutting Edge Informatics Tools for Mining the Druggable Genome

Dr. Kannan receives new NIH funding to develop cutting edge informatics tools for mining the druggable genome. His group will develop a data analytics framework for mining understudied "dark" kinases in collaboration with Dr. Kochut (CS, UGA). https://druggablegenome.net/CEIT_UGA ...

Research on Pseudokinases by Recent Kannan Lab Graduate Annie Kwon Featured in Columns

Graduate student works on so-called ‘dead’ enzymes ...

Cellular Clock Research Led by IOB Professor Jonathan Arnold Featured in Columns

Research shows that individual cells have ‘clocks’ ...

Brigitte Hofmeister Successfully Defends Dissertation

Brigitte Hofmeister and advisor Dr. Bob Schmitz Brigitte Hofmeister successfully defended her dissertation, "Stability of trans-generational and intra-organismal epiallele inheritance in plants" on July 15, 2019. Congratulations Dr. Hofmeister! ...

Ruijie Xu and Lambodhar Damodaran Awarded IDEAS Fellowships

PhD Students Ruijie Xu and Lambodhar Damodaran have been awarded Interdisciplinary Disease Ecology Across Scales (IDEAS) Fellowships which will fund their research beginning in August 2020. Congratulations Ruijie and Lambo! http://ideas.ecology.uga.edu/application/ ...

Ruijie Xu and Jiani Chen Awarded Scholarships to Attend SISG

PhD students Ruijie Xu and Jiani Chen have been awarded scholarships to attend the 2019 Summer Institute in Statistical Genetics at the University of Washington from July 10-18. Congratulations Rachel and Jiani! https://www.biostat.washington.edu/suminst/sisg ...

Dave Montgomery Accepted into the Glycoscience Training Program at the CCRC

PhD student Dave Montgomery has been accepted into the Glycoscience Training Program at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center. Congratulations Dave! http://glycomics.ccrc.uga.edu/gtp/ ...

Save the Date! IOB Symosium 2020

Please alert the IOB office via EMAIL of any scheduling conflicts! Notification deadline is 3PM, TOMORROW, June 26th. Please mark your calendar for the next IOB Symposium on Friday, March 20th, 2020! Speaker nominations can be forwarded to the IOB via email to iobadmin@uga.edu. Location: UGA Center for Continuing Education ...

Annie Kwon Successfully Defends Dissertation

Annie Kwon successfully defended her dissertation, "Tracing the evolution of the tyrosine kinome from sequence to function" on April 17, 2019. Congratulations Dr. Kwon! ...

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!

IOB Director, Dr. Jessica Kissinger and the IOB Graduate Student and Post Doctoral Cohort 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 ...

Dr. Alexander Bucksch receives NSF Early Career Award!

Please congratulate Dr. Bucksch on this amazing accomplishment! Dr. Alexander Bucksch receives the NSF Early Career Award: The phenotypic spectrum: Quantifying new patterns of architecture variation in crop roots ABSTRACTPlant roots are remarkably diverse in size and shape. It is not fully understood how the diversity in root architecture contributes ...

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

WE COMMIT TO SOLVING GRAND CHALLENGES FOR OUR STATE AND WORLD 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 ...

GII Symposium | Advancing Informatics in Government and Industry |NOV 30th @ the GA Center

Too much data … Too little information? Advancing Informatics in Government and Industry, Nov. 30th, 7:30 AM – 3:30 PM The Georgia Informatics Institutes will be hosting the 2nd Advancing Informatics in Government and Industry event on November 30th, 2018.  Organized by a committee representing each of our member units, ...

Elizabeth Trippe Succesfully Defends Dissertation

Elizabeth Trippe has successfully defended her dissertation, "Data Integration for Systems Biology." Congratulation Dr. Trippe!!!! ...

Using big data to fight disease – UGA GREATCommitments

News article featuring Dr. Jessica Kissinger in UGA Today! Data Boost ...

JOB POSTING | Assistant or Associate Professor: Joint appointment in the Institute of Bioinformatics and Marine Sciences

                     Franklin College of Arts and Sciences                     Department of Marine Sciences Institute of Bioinformatics Assistant or Associate Professor: Joint appointment in the Institute of Bioinformatics and the Department of Marine Sciences We seek ...

Bioinformatics Fellowship 2019

Submission Deadline: December 01, 2018 ...

Recent IOB Graduate Zheng Ruan Publishes Paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

"Altered conformational landscape and dimerization dependency underpins the activation of EGFR by αC-β4 loop insertion mutations" has published online at: www.pnas.org ...

Valerie Flint Succesfully Defends Dissertation

Valerie Flint has successfully defended her dissertation, "SHIELD: Snv Heuristic Identification, Exploration, and Location Detector." Congratulation Dr. Flint!!!! ...

Ruan Zheng Successfully Defends Dissertation

Ruan Zheng has successfully defended his dissertation, “Functional annotation of oncogenic mutations in epidermal growth factor receptor kinase.”  During his tenure with IOB, Ruan completed an astonishing eleven publications! Congratulations Dr. Zheng! ...

IOB Graduate Students publish in Scientific Reports

April 25, 2018:  IOB graduate students Liang-Chin Huang and Ruan Zheng in Dr. Kannan’s lab have recently published a paper in Scientific Reports. By integrating protein-related data from multiple sources, their work explored current knowledge gaps in the relationships connecting kinome cancer variants and post-translational modifications (PTM). Their paper proposed testable hypotheses ...

IOB Spring Retreat 2018 | TEAM PURPLE takes the win!

Please congratulate TEAM PURPLE for taking the win at the IOB Spring Retreat 2018 Golf Cart Quest! ...

IOB Graduate Students publish in the Journal of Biological Chemistry

IOB graduate students publish in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (February 12, 2018):IOB graduate students Annie Kwon and Ruan Zheng in Dr. Kannan’s lab have recently published a paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.  Using a variety of computational and experimental methods, their work uncovered a novel regulatory mechanism that ...

Happy Day for UGA Bioinformatics!

A BIG congratulations to our graduates! ...

The IOB Celebrates CJ Tsai’s recognition as an AAAS fellow!

Three UGA faculty members named AAAS Fellows By Allyson Mann | Columns, UGA | December 4, 2017 Three University of Georgia faculty members have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an honor bestowed by their peers for "scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or ...

Annie Kwon Selected for Franklin-Liverpool Fellowship

IOB student,  Annie Kwon, in Dr. Kannan's Lab is selected for the Franklin-Liverpool Fellowship. Annie will obtain international exposure and training in Dr. Eyer's lab at the University of Liverpool, UK, through this fellowship. Congrats Annie!! ...

Data Produced in Liu Lab Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Dr. Liang Liu and his colleagues produced a genome-scale dataset from representatives of all placental mammal orders to infer diversification timing relative to the Cretaceous–Paleogene (KPg) boundary. The phylogenetic analysis suggested that placental mammals underwent a continuous radiation across the KPg boundary. The results have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy ...

IOB Symposium Abstract Book Ready for Download!

Download your copy HERE ...

Frank Fan Successfully Defends Dissertation

Frank Fan successfully defended his dissertation "Statistical Considerations of Expression Quantitative Loci (eQTL) Mapping with Next Generation Sequencing Data". Congratulations Dr. Fan!! ...

Xi Gu Successfully Defends Dissertation

Xi Gu successfully defended her dissertation "Dual Subcellular Localization and Non-Photosynthetic Functions of Phylloquinone in Parasitic and Non-parasitic Plants". Congratulations Dr. Gu!! ...

New Study from Bergman Lab

Dr. Casey Bergman, IOB faculty member, has published a paper in G3: Genes Genomics Genetics. “McClintock: An Integrated Pipeline for Detecting Transposable Element Insertions in Whole Genome Shotgun Sequencing Data” was published in G3: Genes Genomics Genetics in June of this year. The paper can be found here ...

Grant Funded

Dr. Robert Woods, adjunct faculty with the Institute of Bioinformatics, was recently awarded an NIH U01 grant titled "GlyProbity: tools to curate glycan structure pre and post deposition in the PDB". Congratulations Dr. Woods!! ...

Dr. Jessica Kissinger awarded Distinguished Research Professor

FEATURE STORIES Global expert Editor's note: This video profile is part of a series about UGA faculty who were named Distinguished Research Professors in 2017. Jessica Kissinger, professor of genetics, is a globally recognized molecular biologist and world expert in bio-computational research whose contributions to the field of eukaryotic pathogen research have helped transform ...

Yi Yan Successfully Defends Dissertation

Yi Yan successfully defended his dissertation “Multi-omic and Multi-scale Data Integration for the Characterization of Malaria Infection in Non-Human Primates”. Congratulations Dr. Yan!! ...

IOB Faculty Contribute to Breakthrough

Dr. Arthur Edison and Dr. Natarajan Kannan, as well as members of their labs, have contributed to a project that has resulted in a breakthrough in the treatment of leukemia. While working with Dr. Takahiro Ito, the researchers have identified a new drug target for the two most common types ...

Dr. Robert Schmitz Receives Appointment

The Georgia Board of Regents recently approved the appointment of Dr. Robert Schmitz as a GRA - Lars Ljungdahl Distinguished Investigator. Congratulations!! ...

2017 IOB Fall Symposium | REGISTER NOW!

Registration in NOW OPEN for the 2017 UGA Institute of Bioinformatics Fall Symposium: Parsing the Microbiome. For more information please visit the IOB Fall Symposium page listed in the menu above. To REGISTER click HERE ...

NSF REU Sites Beginning Next Week

8 REU sites begin at UGA next week, including topics in Genomics and Computational Biology, Nanotechnology, and Chromatin Complex ...

iWall Installed in Science Library

A new iWall system has been installed in the Science Library, located in Boyd Graduate Studies. The iWall is an interactive hardware/software system that allows for innovative and collaborative educational experiences. The iWall is a joint venture, and is available for collaboratorium classes and interdisciplinary projects ...

Dr. Jessica Kissinger Named Distinguished Research Professor

Dr. Jessica Kissinger, Director of IOB and Professor in the Department of Genetics, has been named a Distinguished Research Professor. Dr. Kissinger's work in the field of eukaryotic pathogen research has transformed how pathogen research is conducted internationally. For more information on Dr. Kissinger's research, please visit the UGA 38th ...

IOB Faculty Named Associate Editor

Dr. Alexander Bucksch has been named Associate Editor for Plant Methods. Plant Methods is an open access, peer-reviewed journal for the plant research community that encompasses all aspects of technological innovation in the plant sciences ...

Bioinformatics Student Receives Grant

Zheng Ruan, PhD student in Bioinformatics, has been awarded a 2017 Innovative and Interdisciplinary Research Grant from the University of Georgia Graduate School. This grant provides an award to assist Mr. Ruan in his research activities. The Graduate School established this program as part of its strategic initiative to support ...

3-Minute Thesis Competition Winners

The Institute of Bioinformatics held a 3-Minute Thesis competition at our recent retreat. First place was given to Yi Yan, while Elizabeth Trippe came in as a close second. The competition was fierce and fun! Congratulations!! ...

IOB Faculty and Alumnus Publish Paper

Dr. Natarajan Kannan, IOB faculty member, and Dr. Daniel McSkimming, IOB alumnus, have published a paper in BMC Bioinformatics. "Classifying kinase conformations using a machine learning approach" was published in BMC Bioinformatics in February of this year. The paper can be found here ...

Bioinformatics Student name as Training Grant Fellow

Bioinformatics PhD student Brigitte Hofmeister has been named a Training Fellow on the UGA Genetics Training Grant. Brigitte is one of 8 recipients, and this is her second year as a Training Fellow. Congratulations!! ...

2017 IOB Fall Symposium LOGO Design Competition | Deadline April 7th, 2017

IOB Fall Symposium: Parsing the Microbiome Enter the IOB Fall Symposium LOGO Design Competition. Applicants MUST be an IOB graduate student OR a design team hosted by a IOB graduate student. Designs teams are encouraged!    AWARD $250 The log should relate to the main symposium topic and will be used ...

Dr. Travis Glenn Publishes Paper

Associate Director and Adjunct Faculty member Dr. Travis Glenn has published a paper in Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. Finger, J.W., M.T. Hamilton, T.C. Glenn, and T.D. Tuberville. 2017. Dietary selenomethionine administration in the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis): hepatic and renal Se accumulation and its effects on growth and ...

Dr. Travis Glenn Publishes Papers

Dr. Travis Glenn, adjunct professor and Associate Director of IOB, has recently published two papers. Gilbert, G.S., J. O. Ballesteros, C. A. Barrios-Rodriguez, E. F. Bonadies, M. L. Cedeño-Sánchez, N. J. Fossatti-Caballero, M. M. Trejos-Rodríguez, J. M. Pérez-Suñiga, K. S. Holub-Young, L. A.W. Henn, J. B. Thompson, C. G. García-López, ...

Georgia Scientific Computing Symposium 2017

The Georgia Scientific Computing Symposium 2017 will take place on Saturday, February 25, 2017,  Paul D. Coverdell Center for Biomedical & Health Sciences, Athens, GA 30602, University of Georgia. The Georgia Scientific Computing Symposium (GSCS) is a forum for professors, postdocs, graduate students and other researchers in Georgia to meet ...

Save the Date! The next IOB Symposium will be held on 9/25/17

The next IOB Symposium will be held on Monday, September 25, 2017. Location Details:  Georgia Center at UGA, Masters Hall More details comming soon! ...

Professor of crop, soil sciences, plant biology named AAAS Fellow | Columns | UGA

Katrien M. Devos, a professor of crop and soil sciences and plant biology at UGA, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers. In 2016, 391 members were awarded ...

IOB Graduate Student Awarded Fellowship

PhD student Rahil Taujale has been named a Training Fellow in the Glycoscience Training Program at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center at UGA. Congratulations Rahil! More information on the GTP can be found here ...

IOB Member Awarded “Doctor Honoris Causa”

Dr. David P. Landau, Distinguished Research Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and the Member of the Institute of Bioinformatics, has been awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa by the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). Federal University of Minas Gerais is a federal university located in ...

Graduate Student Ruan Zheng Publishes Paper

PhD student Ruan Zheng has published a paper in Biochemistry. The paper can be found here ...

PhD Application Deadline Extended

The deadline to apply for a PhD in Bioinformatics through Integrated Life Sciences program has been extended to DEC 8 | 2016. Please review the Master/PhD page on our website for further details ...

Amika Sood Successfully Defends Dissertation

Amika Sood successfully defends her dissertation "Development of computational methods to characterize carbohydrate-protein interactions". Congratulations Dr. Sood!! ...

Dr. Alexander Bucksch attending AGU Fall Meeting

Dr. Bucksch is the session organizer at the AGU Fall meeting being held in San Fransisco, California, December 12-16, 2016. Dr. Bucksch’s session is titled “Revealing the hidden half: Advances in imaging and quantification of plant roots and root-soil interactions.” ...

Yecheng Huang Successfully Defends Dissertation

Yecheng Huang successfully defended his dissertation “Improving canine genome annotation by identification of overmerged genes and retrogenes in current databases”. Congratulations Dr. Huang!! ...

New Course Offered: BINF 8950

BINF 8950 – SYSTEMS BIOLOGY Systems Biology is about explaining complex traits, such as the clock, development, carbon cycling, and malaria in terms of underlying pathways.  We will introduce omics approaches to identifying  the underlying pathways for such traits. We are taking a novel educational approach to systems biology using ...

Graduate Student Earns Award

PhD student Xi Gu has been awarded first place for her poster in the Cytoscape competition at the RECOMB/ISCB Conference on Regulatory & Systems Genomics, with DREAM Challenges & Cytoscape Workshop. Congrats Xi!! ...

IOB Faculty, Alum, Student Publish Article in Scientific Reports

IOB Faculty, Dr. Jonathan Arnold and Dr. Heinz-Bernd Shuttler, along with Dr. Ahmad Al-Omari, (PhD 2015) and Sam Arsenault (BINF Certificate) have published an article in Scientific Reports. “Synchronizing stochastic circadian oscillators in single cells of Neurospora crassa” can be read here ...

Recent Graduate Publishes Paper

Recent graduate Dr. Daniel McSkimming has published a paper in Molecular BioSystems. His paper, “KinView: a visual comparative sequence analysis tool for integrated kinome research” can be viewed here ...

Bioinformatics Doctoral Student Featured on UGA Graduate School Website

Bioinformatics doctoral student Tito Peña Montenegro is being featured on the UGA Graduate School website. His work on metagenomics and metatranscriptomic data sets is detailed in the story.  You can read the story here ...

Dr. Shannon Quinn accepted to IEEE DSAA 2016

Dr. Shannon Quinn, faculty in the Institute of Bioinformatics, has had a paper accepted to IEEE DSAA 2016, being held in Montreal, Canada in October 2016 ...

Faculty member published in Nature: Scientific Reports

Researchers from the lab of Dr. CJ Tsai have published a network paper in Scientific Reports. To download the paper, please click here ...

Dr. Shannon Quinn to Co-chair Workshop

Dr. Shannon Quinn will be co-chairing the OSBD BigData Conference workshop, hosted by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, on December 508, 2016. The conference workshop is being held in Washington, D.C. For more information click here ...

Dr. Travis Glenn Published Two Papers in Special Issue

Dr. Travis Glenn has published two papers in a special issue of Molecular Ecology Resources. The papers were included in a special issue that Dr. Glenn was asked to co-edit. The papers are: “Capturing Darwin’s dream” and :RADcap: Sequence capture of dual-digest RADseq libraries with identifiable duplicates and reduced missing ...

Publication by Dr. Travis Glenn now in Print

Dr. Travis Glenn has published a paper in Systems Biology. “Analysis of a rapid evolutionary radiation using ultraconserved elements (UCEs): Evidence for a bias in some multispecies coalescent methods” is reference below and you can read it online here. Meiklejohn, K. A., B. C. Faircloth, T. C. Glenn, R. T ...

Dr. Travis Glenn Publishes in Systematic Biology

“Sequence capture versus restriction site associated DNA sequencing for shallow systematics” has been published in Systematic Biology. The paper can be read here and the reference is below. Harvey, M. G., B. T. Smith, T. C. Glenn, B. C. Faircloth, and R. T. Brumfield. (2016) Sequence capture versus restriction site ...

Recent Graduate Accepts Position

Dr. Chi Zhang, recent graduate in the Bioinformatics program, has accepted a position at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Zhang will be an assistant professor in the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics and his research will be associated with the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. We ...

Dr. Alexander Bucksch Invited Presenter at EMSL Workshop

Dr. Bucksch has been invited to speak at the EMSL Workshop in Multiscale Plant Modeling, at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on August 25-26, 2016. The workshop will take place in Richland, WA ...

Dr. Jessica Kissinger writes for Nature Genetics

Dr. Kissinger, Director of IOB and Professor in the Genetics Department, has published a News and Views article Nature Genetics ...

IOB Student Lexiang Ji Publishes Paper

IOB student Lexiang Ji has published in PNAS . The article is titled "On the origin and evolutionary consequences of gene body DNA methylation." Dr. Bob Schmitz is the corresponding author ...

IOB Faculty Member Awarded Fellowship

Dr. Art Edison has been given a Fulbright Specialist Fellowship. Dr. Edison will teach NMR and metabolomics to students in Ecuador, spending significant time in country to teach, develop new collaborations, and recruit graduate students to the University of Georgia ...

REU Poster Session

IOB Graduate Coordinator Dr. Jonathan Arnold invites all to visit the Georgia Center Hotel Lobby on Friday, July 22 for the REU Poster Session. Over 60 participants from around the country will present their posters from 9:00 to 11:00AM ...

Norman Hassell Successfully Defends Masters Thesis

Norman Hassell successfully defended is thesis "Patterns and dynamics of pelagic stream microbial community assembly" Congratulations! ...

Daniel McSkimming Successfully Defends Dissertation

Daniel McSkimming successfully defended his dissertation "Rational characterization of cancer variants in the eukaryotic protein kinase domain". Congratulations Dr. McSkimming!! ...

IOB Faculty Member Awarded NIH Grant

Dr. Robert J. Woods has received significant funding from the National Institutes of Health. The U01 grant has been awarded to develop a suite of web-based tools to enable non-specialists to model glycoconjugates and glycan-protein interations. Congratulations Dr. Woods! ...

IOB Graduate Student Publishes in G3

Bioinformatics doctoral student Lexiang Ji is first co-author of a paper recently published in G3 - Genes Genomes Genetics. The paper is a result of collaboration with Dr. Zack Lewis, Assistant Professor in Microbiology at UGA. Ji's paper, "Histone H1 limits DNA methylation in Neurospora crassa" can be found here ...

DARPA Contract Awarded

Dr. Juan Gutierrez and Dr. Jessica Kissinger are two of 40 established investigators involved in the THoR's HAMMER project, which was recently funded through a $6.4 million contract. The Defense Advances Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) are supporting the project which focuses on malaria and ...

REU Students work with IOB Faculty

Dr. Jonathan Arnold, who oversees the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program through the Department of Genetics, has placed several REU participants with IOB faculty. The National Science Foundation program promotes active research participation by undergraduate students in any of the areas of research funded by the NSF. REU participants ...

iWall makes a visit to the Life Sciences Building

Dr. Jonathan Arnold, Graduate Coordinator of the Institute of Bioinformatics, and Professor of Genetics has introduced the UGA community to a highly advance in innovative technological teaching tool. Three panels of iWall have been installed in a classroom in the Life Sciences Building. Dr. Arnold is using this technology in ...

Recent Graduate Accepts Position

Recent PhD graduate Joydeep Mitra has accepted a Postdoc position at Memorial Sloan Ketterling Cancer Center in New York City, NY. Dr. Mitra will be working on a cancer genomics project aimed at personalized therapies. He will be joining the lab of Dr. Elli Papaemmanuil and working the with head ...

IOB Student Annie Kwon wins Poster Award

Ph.D. Student Annie Kwon was awarded Best Poster at the UGA Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Retreat. The retreat, held at Unicoi State Park on May 15-16, 2016, offered two awards for best talk and two awards for best poster. This award comes with a monetary prize. Congratulations Annie! ...

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grant

Faculty of the Institute of Bioinformatics have received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create a better reference genome annotation and metabolic map for the protist pathogen Cryptosporidium. IOB Graduate student Yiran Li will be working on the comparative genomics aspects of this project ...

Winner of the Ying Xu Outstanding Paper Award

Yi H. Yan is the winner of the Ying Xu Outstanding Paper Award. Papers published during the 2015 calendar year were submitted to consideration. Mr. Yan's paper, "Mathematical model of susceptibility, resistance, and resilience in the within-host dynamics between a Plasmodium parasite and the immune system" was published in Mathematical ...

IOB Promotions and Tenure

IOB is excited to announce that three faculty members have received promotions. Dr. Shaying Zhao has been promoted to Professor. Dr. Liang Liu has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure. Dr. Juan Gutierrez has been promoted to Associate Professor. Congratulations!!! ...

IOB Student Receives Research Grant and Defends Masters Thesis

IOB graduate student Duo Peng has been awarded an Innovative and Interdisciplinary Research Grant from the UGA Graduate School. In addition, Duo successfully defended his masters thesis, "Frequent Intra-family Recombination in the Largest Repository of Antigen Variants in the Protozoan Pathogen Trypanosoma cruzi". Duo will continue his research in the ...

Recent IOB Graduate Accepts Position

Recent PhD graduate Anita Nivedha has accepted a Post-doc position with Beckman Research Institute. Dr. Nivedha will work on GPCRs and coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation method. Beckman Research Institute of an adjoining medical center together form City of Hope, a cancer center located in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California ...

Chi Zhang wins Graduate Student Excellence in Research Award

Recent IOB graduate Chi Zhang has been awarded a Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award. Initiated in 1999 to recognize the quality and significance of graduate student scholarship, these awards may be given in five areas: Fine Arts, Humanities and Letters, Life Sciences, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and  Applied Studies. Chi Zhang, ...

Dr. Jessica Kissinger Given the 2016 Richard Reiff Award

Dr. Jessica Kissinger has been awarded the 2016 Richard Reiff Award, The University of Georgia's highest award for internationalization. Dr. Kissinger has created an extensive international research network. This award is richly deserved ...

IOB Adjunct Faculty Member Publishes Paper

Dr. Scott Jackson has published "Landscape and evolutionary dynamics of terminal repeat retrotransposons in miniature in plant genomes" in Genome Biology. Click to view the paper ...

NIH R21 Proposal Funded

An NIH R21 proposal based on the work of IOB graduate student Duo Peng, who works in the Tarleton lab, has been funded. The title of the proposal is "Development of CRISPR/Cas system for study of trans-sialidase family genes in Trypanosoma cruzi" ...

Two IOB Faculty contribute to Publication

Liang Liu and Jessie Kissinger are key contributors to a 62 genome pathogen analysis published in Nature Communications this week. Click here to read "Local admixture of amplified and diversified secreted pathogenesis determinants shapes mosaic Toxoplasma gondii genomes" ...

Six Ph.D. students Join Bioinformatics

Six students have joined the Institute of Bioinformatics to pursue doctorate degrees in Bioinformatics. Burair Alsaihati Liang-Chin Huang Yiran Li Rahil Taujale Joshua Watson Shumeng Zhang We're excited to welcome them to the program and the IOB community! ...

IOB Graduates 11 Ph.D. Students in 2015

As the year comes to a close, we'd like to again congratulate the 11 students who completed their Ph.D. degrees in Bioinformatics in 2015. Dr. Ahmad Al-Omari Dr. Yulun Chiu Dr. Tess Griffin Dr. Yongjie Huang Dr. Fei Ji Dr. Spandana Makeneni Dr. Joydeep Mitra Dr. Anita Nivedha Dr. Arunima ...

Joydeep Mitra Successfully Defends Dissertation

Joydeep Mitra successfully defended his dissertation “Identification of trans-acting sRNA targets in Bacteria”. Congratulations Dr. Mirta! ...

Chi Zhang Successfully Defends Dissertation

Chi Zhang successfully defended his dissertation "Deciphering possible roles of micro-environmental stresses in cancer initiation and progression by modeling of cancer omics data". Congratulations Dr. Zhang! ...

Chi Zhang Successfully Defends Dissertation

Chi Zhang successfully defended his dissertation "Deciphering possible roles of micro-environmental stresses in cancer initiation and progression by modeling of cancer omics data". Congratulations Dr. Zhang! ...

Arunima Singh Successfully Defends Dissertation

Arunima Singh successfully defended her dissertation "Computational Modeling Of Glycosaminoglycans And Their Interactions With Proteins". Congratulations Dr. Singh! ...

Anita Nivedha Successfully Defends Dissertation

Anita Nivedha defended her dissertation "Consideration of Glycosidic Torsion Angle Preferences and CH/π Interactions In Protein-Carbohydrate Docking". Congratulations to Dr. Nivedha! ...

Fei Ji Successfully Defends Dissertation

Fei Ji successfully defended his dissertation "Tools and Analysis for Protein Structure and Function". Congratulations to Dr. Ji! ...

IOB Hosts Successful Symposium

The Institute of Bioinformatics hosted a symposium, Big Data Challenges in Life Sciences, at the Georgia Center on Oct. 12, 2015. Big Data experts from across the country presented during the day-long event, which was attended by 140 registrants from UGA and neighboring areas. IOB would like to thank the ...

Student Receives Graduate Fellowship

Doctoral student Zheng Ruan has been awarded the Grimes Family Distinguished Fellowship in Natural Sciences. The Fellowship provides support to a student in Franklin College working on cancer research. Congratulations Ruan! ...

Shimkits Lab Publishes Research

Dr. Lawrence Shimkits and his lab have published research in Genes and Development. The soil bacterium research has identified a potential mechanism for neurodegenerative diseases. More information available here ...

NIH 3-year Grant Awarded

Liming Cai, with co-PIs Russell Malmberg and Cory Momany, has been awarded a 3-year NIH (R01) grant to develop graph algorithms for ncRNA 3D structure prediction, as a part of the NSF-DMS/NIH-NIGMS joint Initiative to Support Research at the Interface of the Biological and Mathematical Sciences ...

IOB Faculty Receives Grant

Dr. Natarajan Kannan has been awarded a 5 year NIH award to identify causative disease mutations in signaling proteins. Congratulations!! ...

Recent Graduates Find Job Placement

Recent Ph.D. graduates from the Bioinformatics program have found career placement at prestigious institutions. Some of these placements include The National Institutes of Health (Amir Manzour), St. Jude's Children's Hospital (Tim Shaw), Centers for Disease Control (Ujwal Bagal), University of Pennsylvania (Dorothy Hammond), Cornell Medical College (Deli Liu), and MD ...

Wellcome Trusts Funds Collaborative Award

Wellcome Trusts has funded a collaborative award between University of Liverpool, UPENN, and UGA to facilitate Eukaryotic microbe data integration. Christiane Hertz-Fowler of Liverpool is the project Primary Investigator. The total Trust award is £1,517,482 ($2.37 million) over 4 years. Approximately $445,000 a year is for Kissinger Research Group at ...

IOB Director Accepts Position as Editor

IOB Director Dr. Jessica Kissinger has joined Microbial Genomics as an Editor.  To read the journal, please visit http://mgen.sgmjournals.org ...

IOB Student Lexing Ji Publishes Paper

IOB student Lexiang Ji has published in Nucleic Acids Research (Oxford Journals). The article is titled "Base-resolution detection of N4-methylcytosine in genomic DNA using 4mC-Tet-assisted-bisulfite-sequencing" You can find the paper here ...

IOB Student Zheng Ruan Publishes Paper

IOB student Zheng Ruan has published in Biochemistry (ACS Publications). The article is titled "Mechanistic Insights into R776H Mediated Activation of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Kinase" You can find the paper here ...

IOB Student Arunima Singh Publishes Paper

IOB student Arunima Singh has published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The article, titled "The Interaction of Heparin Tetrasaccharides with Chemokine CCL5 Is Modulated by Sulfation Pattern and pH"  In addition, the cover image for the June 19th edition was generated by Ms. Singh and her lab. You can ...

IOB Student Receives Competitive Award

IOB student Elizabeth Trippe received travel awards from the New Phytologist Trust and the UGA Plant Center to attend the 35th New Phytologist Symposium: The Genomes of Forest Trees: New Frontiers of Forest Biology. Ms. Trippe was chosen to present at the conference, held at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard ...

IOB Adjunct Faculty Member Edits Plant DNA

Dr. CJ Tsai, adjunct faculty member in the Institute of Bioinformatics, has made modifications to the genome of a tree species for the first time. Dr. Tsai is working with a gene editing tool called CRISPR/Cas to make genomic changes to specific genes in the genus Populus -- a group ...

IOB Student Chi Zhang Publishes Paper

Chi Zhang has published in the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology. His article "Elucidation of drivers of high-level productions of lactates throughout a cancer development" is available here ...

IOB Adjunct Faculty Receives Pew Award

Dr. Bob Schmitz, adjunct faculty in the Institute of Bioinformatics, has been named a Pew scholar by the Pew Charitable Trusts. This prestigious award goes to researchers at the Assistant Professor level and comes with flexible funding for the next four years. For more information, please see the story on ...

IOB Student publishes paper in The Journal of Molecular Cell Biology

IOB Student Chi Zhang has published a paper in The Journal of Molecular Cell Biology, titled "Elucidation of drivers of high-level production of lactates throughout a cancer development." To read the paper, please go here ...

IOB Student publishes paper in The Journal of Biological Chemistry

IOB Student Arunima Singh has published a paper in The Journal of Biological Chemistry, titled "The interaction of heparin tetrasaccharides with chemokine CCL5 is modulated by sulfation pattern and pH" The paper can be found online here ...

Student Awarded Competitive Research Grant

Shelton Griffith has been awarded a National Research Service Award by the Department of Health and Human Services at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH). Mr. Griffith will use the award for his project, "Annotation and Comparative Genomic Analysis of Cryptosporidium baileyi" ...

Student Awarded Competitive Research Grant

Shelton Griffith has been awarded a National Research Service Award by the Department of Health and Human Services at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH). Mr. Griffith will use the award for his project, "Annotation and Comparative Genomic Analysis of Cryptosporidium baileyi" ...

Tess Griffin Successfully Defends Dissertation

Tess Griffin successfully defended her dissertation "HIV Evolution in the Brain". Congratulations to Dr. Griffin! ...

Dogwood Genome Project Involves IOB Faculty

Dr. Magdy Alabady, Dr. James Leebens-Mack, and Dr. CJ Tsai are IOB-affiliated faculty members who are working on a large genomic project funded by the National Science Foundation.  Along with other Southeastern universities, UGA is working to complete the first complete genome sequence for dogwoods, allowing for new varieties that ...

IOB Students Successfully Defend

Dong Zhang, Spandana Makeneni, and Yongjie Huang have successfully defended their dissertations.  Congratulations to all three! ...

Xi Gu Awarded Research Grant

Senior IOB student Xi Gu has been awarded an Interdisciplinary and Innovative Research Grant from the UGA Graduate School. Ms. Gu will use the award for her summer research projects. Congratulations to Ms. Gu! ...

Xi Gu Awarded Research Grant

Senior IOB student Xi Gu has been awarded an Interdisciplinary and Innovative Research Grant from the UGA Graduate School. Ms. Gu will use the award for her summer research projects. Congratulations to Ms. Gu! ...

IOB Faculty working on creating stress- and disease-free trees

IOB Faculty member CJ Tsai is part of a team working to create stress-free and disease-free trees. Dr. Tsai, who is faculty in Genetics and Forestry, is part of a team who are using a $490,000 grant to identify the genes that are responsible for stress tolerance.  For more information, ...

IOB Student publishes paper in Molecular Plant

IOB student Lexiang Ji has published a paper in Molecular Plant.  "Crop Epigenomics: Identifying, Unlocking, and Harnessing Cryptic Variation in Crop Genomes" discusses discoveries in crop epigenomics, in particular the role of DNA methylation in development, evolution, and response to environmental changes.  To read the paper, please go here ...

Ahmad Al-Omari Successfully Defends Dissertation

Ahmad Al-Omari successfully defended his dissertation "Discovering a Regulatory Network Topology by Markov Chain Monte-Carlo on GPGPUS with Special Reference to the Biological Clock of Neurospora crassa". Congratulations to Dr. Al-Omari! ...

Winners of the Ying Xu Outstanding Student Paper Award

The winners of the 2014 Ying Xu Outstanding Student Paper Award are Deli Liu and Chi Zhang. Congratulations are in order for both gentlemen, who had significant findings published in 2014 ...

IOB Student Ahmad Al-Omari published paper

Ahmad Al-Omari has published the third and final chapter of his dissertation. "Discovering regulatory network topologies using ensemble methods on GPGPUs with special reference to the biological clock of Neurospora crassa" has been published in IEEE Xplore and can be viewed here ...

Two Articles Published by Bioinformatics Graduate Student

IOB graduate student Duo Peng has published two first-author papers. "Bayesian phylogeny of sucrose transporters: ancient origins, differential expansion and convergent evolution in monocots and dicots" was published in Frontiers in Plant Science. "CRISPR-Cas9-Mediated Single-Gene and Gene Family Disruption in Trypanosoma cruzi" was published in mBio ...

IOB Student publishes paper in Quantitative Biology

Graduate student Chi Zhang has published a paper in the September 2014 issue of Quantitative Biology. The article titled "Population dynamics inside cancer biomass driven by repeated hypoxia-reoxygenation cycles" can be found here ...

Building on big data, UPenn and UGA awarded $23.4 million pathogen genomics database contract

A genome database team led by University of Pennsylvania and University of Georgia scientists has been awarded a new contract from the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease worth $4.3 million in 2014-2015. Assuming annual renewal, this five-year award is expected to total $23.4 million. The team has been ...

UGA, Emory collaborate to leverage strengths in infectious disease research

The University of Georgia and Emory University are strengthening their collaborations to elevate the position of the Atlanta-Athens corridor as a national hub for infectious disease research. The two institutions are currently working together on grant and contract-funded projects totaling more than $45 million, including a Center of Excellence for ...

UGA, Emory collaborate to leverage strengths in infectious disease research

The University of Georgia and Emory University are strengthening their collaborations to elevate the position of the Atlanta-Athens corridor as a national hub for infectious disease research. The two institutions are currently working together on grant and contract-funded projects totaling more than $45 million, including a Center of Excellence for ...

UGA Faculty, Students, and Alumni Sequence Bird and Crocodilian Genomes To Improve Environmental Health

An international team of scientists comprised of more than 200 researchers from 80 institutions from 20 countries has sequenced and analyzed the genomes of 48 species of birds and 3 species of crocodilians to better understand the fundamental evolutionary events that led to feathers, flight, and song. The Avian Phylogenomics ...

UGA Faculty, Students, and Alumni Sequence Bird and Crocodilian Genomes To Improve Environmental Health

An international team of scientists comprised of more than 200 researchers from 80 institutions from 20 countries has sequenced and analyzed the genomes of 48 species of birds and 3 species of crocodilians to better understand the fundamental evolutionary events that led to feathers, flight, and song. The Avian Phylogenomics ...

IOB Students Defend Dissertations

Jingping Li successfully defended her dissertation, titled "Detection of ancient genome duplications in several flowering plant lineages and synte-molecular comparison of homologous regions" Deli Liu successfully defended his dissertation, titled "Molecular homology between human and dog on mammary and oral cancers" Dorothy Hammond successfully defended her dissertation, titled "Functional Annotation ...

IOB Student Published Paper in Human Mutation

Institute of Bioinformatics graduate student Daniel McSkimming published a paper in Human Mutation.Click on the title to read the article: ProKinO: A Unified Resource for Mining the Cancer Kinome ...

Dr. Jessica Kissinger is awarded grant

Dr. Kissinger has received a two year grant from the National Institutes of Health.  The title of the project is "Resolution of Genome Duplications in Tosoplasma gondii" ...

Recent IOB Graduate publishes first author paper

Amanda Bouffier published "A MINE Alternative to D-Optimal Designs for the Linear Model" in PLOS One. To read the article, click here ...

New study use DNA squences to look back in time at key events in plant evolution

Dr. Jim Leebens-Mack, Department of Plant Biology; and Raj Ayyampalayam, QBCG, have published a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. To read about the study, click here. To read the study itself, click here ...

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR POSITION IN BIOINFORMATICS/BIOLOGICAL DATA SCIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA

The Institute of Bioinformatics at the University of Georgia invites applications at the Assistant Professor level for a tenure-track faculty position in bioinformatics or computational biology starting August 2015. We welcome applications from candidates with experience in any area of bioinformatics or biological data science/data analytics research. The candidate should ...

IOB Student publishes paper in Cancer Research

Institute of Bioinformatics graduate student Deli Liu published a paper in the July issue of Cancer Research Click on the title to read the article: Molecular Homology and Difference between Spontaneous Canine Mammary Cancer and Human Breast Cancer ...

Dr. Travis Glenn publishes paper in Nature

Institute of Bioinformatics Associate Faculty member Travis Glenn recently published a paper in the journal Nature.  To read this article, please follow the link below. The drivers of tropical speciation ...

Dr. Ying Xu Featured in UGA Today

The research of Dr. Ying Xu was highlighted in UGA Today. To access the article, click here ...

Cancer Bioinformatics Book published

The latest book by Dr. Ying Xu, along with co-authors Drs. J. David Puett and former lab member Juan Cui, Cancer Bioinformatics has been published by Springer. For more information ...

IOB Student Lexiang Ji publishes paper

Lexiang Ji was first author on a paper that was recently published by Frontiers in Genetics.  The paper, linked below, is titled, Methylated DNA is over-represented in whole-genome bisulfite sequencing data. http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fgene.2014.00341/abstract ...

QBCG Highlighted in COLUMNS Cybersights

The Quantitative Biology Consulting Group (QBCG) was featured in the September 15, 2014 edition of UGA's COLUMNS Newspaper.  The Cybersights article showcases QBCG's redesigned website. http://columns.uga.edu/news/fulltext/consulting-group-updates-web-presence/ ...

Ying Xu Award Announced

Graduate student Dong Zhang has been awarded the 2014 Ying Xu Award for his paper "CSGRqtl, a Comparative Quantitative Trait Locus Database for the Saccharinae Grasses".  The Institute of Bioinformatics is very proud of this accomplishment and sends our congratulations to Dong ...

Dr. Shaying Zhao Receives NCI Grant

Shaying Zhao receives NCI grant to discover cancer drivers with man's best friend Shaying Zhao has received a five year $1.5 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to identify colorectal cancer driver genes using a novel dog-human comparative  genomics and oncology approach. Congratulations Shaying! ...

Student Xi Gu Selected

Graduate Student Xi Gu has been selected to participate in this year's Graduate School Emerging Leaders Program. As stated on the Graduate School website: The Emerging Leaders Program is an invited leadership workshop sponsored by the Graduate School.  This two and a half-day program, which is held off campus, helps ...

Student Xi Gu Selected

Graduate Student Xi Gu has been selected to participate in this year's Graduate School Emerging Leaders Program. As stated on the Graduate School website: The Emerging Leaders Program is an invited leadership workshop sponsored by the Graduate School.  This two and a half-day program, which is held off campus, helps ...

Institute of Bioinformatics Alumni Recruited Far and Wide

Multiple alumni of the Bioinformatics Program at the University of Georgia have gone off to be recruited by multiple, well-known companies and organizations nationwide. Such companies include the Center for Disease Control, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, the National Institutes of Health and multiple research positions at esteemed universities ...

Timothy Shaw Successfully Defends Dissertation and Graduates

Congratulations to Timothy Shaw on successfully defending his dissertation and graduating with his PhD of Bioinformatics in May 2014! ...

Congratulations to Amir Manzourolajdad for Completing PhD in Bioinformatics

Amirhossein Manzourolajdad successfully defended his dissertation and graduating with his PhD of Bioinformatics in May 2014! ...

Taoran Dong Completes PhD Program in IOB

Congratulations to Taoran Dong for successfully defending her dissertation and graduating with her PhD of Bioinformatics in May 2014! ...

Ujwal Bagal Graduates from IOB

Congratulations to Ujwal Bagal for successfully defending her dissertation and graduating with her PhD of Bioinformatics in May 2014! ...

Ujwal Bagal Graduates from IOB

Congratulations to Ujwal Bagal for successfully defending her dissertation and graduating with her PhD of Bioinformatics in May 2014! ...

Ameya Kulkarni Graduates with PhD in Bioinformatics

Congrats to Ameya Kulkarni on successfully completing his PhD program in December 2013! ...

Brown Bag Bioinformatics

The Institute of Bioinformatics and the Quantitative Biology Consulting Group are pleased to announce dates for the Brown Bag Bioinformatics series. These lunch meetings are informal gatherings that bring people together to learn, share, and discuss bioinformatics.  People with all levels of skill and knowledge are welcome. No registration is ...

Institute to host Galaxy Software workshop

The Institute of Bioinformatics will be hosting a workshop on Galaxy, an open, web-based platform for data intensive bioinformatics. The event will be held on March 7, 2014 in the Paul D. Coverdell Center. Workshop participants will learn how to use Galaxy from the team that created it. The Galaxy ...

Scott Russell Graduates with MS Degree from IOB

Congrats to Scott Russell on successfully completing his MS program in December 2013! ...

Congratulations to Yin Sun

Congratulations to Yin Sun on defending her thesis successfully and acquiring her MS degree from IOB! ...

Nibiao Zheng Finishes Dissertation

Nibiao Zheng finishes his dissertation and graduates with a P.h. D from the Bioinformatics Institute in December 2013 ...

Congratulations to Yan Li on Successfully Completing Dissertation

Yan Li successfully completed her dissertation and graduated in December of 2013 ...

Liang Feng Successfully Defends Dissertation

Congratulations to Liang Feng for successfully defending her dissertation! Her dissertation is titled "Gene Pair Rearrangement during the Evolution of Flowering Plants." ...

IOB Student Chosen for Google Summer Program

IOB first-year Ph.D. student Zheng Ruan was accepted for the Google Summer of Code 2013 program to work with the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent). His project is titled "Codon Alignment and Analysis in Biopython" and he will be mentored by current Biopython developers Eric Talevich and Peter Cock. Congratulations ...

IOB Student Awarded Innovative and Interdisciplinary Research Grant

Chi Zhang has been awarded the 2013 Innovative and Interdisciplinary Research Grant. This grant is part of a program established by the Graduate School to support innovation and interdisciplinarity in the research conducted by doctoral students. Congratulations Chi! ...

Symposium Award Winners

Congratulations to all of the symposium award winners! Duo Peng won the Outstanding Poster Award, and Ujwal Bagal won the Ying Xu Outstanding Student Paper Award ...

UGA partners with Emory, GA Tech and CDC on malaria systems biology research center

IOB Director Jessica Kissinger and IOB and Mathematics assistant professor Juan Gutierriez are part of a malaria research center that was awarded up to $19.4 million by a recent NIH contract.  The malaria host-pathogen interaction center, MaHPIC, will study the systems biology of non-human primate, and human malaria ...

Liang Liu awarded NSF Grant

Congratulations to Dr. Liang Liu for receiving an NSF Grant for his project entitled "Collaborative Research: Developing a Probabilistic Model for Gene Family Evolution." ...

IOB Faculty Member (Dr. Natarajan Kannan) makes the front page in the July 30, 2012 issue of Columns

Professor will use NSF Award to trace origin of a protein family. To read more about the NSF award, click HERE for details. Dr. Natarajan Kannan is a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar, an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and ...

Celine Hong – 2012 James L. Carmon Scholarship Award Recipient

Celine Hong, PhD candidate in the Institute of Bioinformatics, uses innovative ideas and cutting-edge computational methods to address biological problems related to cancer. One of the main topics in Hong’s research is to find a way to enhance cancer diagnosis by identifying biomarkers that can be used to detect the ...

2012 Spring Symposium Poster Awards

The poster award winners went to Eric Talevich of Dr. Natarajan Kannan's lab and Yan Li of Dr. Andeas Handel's lab.  Congratulations to all! ...

Natarajan Kannan wins the NSF Career Award

Congratulations to Dr. Natarajan Kannan for winning the NSF Career Award for his project entitled "Unraveling the Design Principles of Protein Kinases using an Evolutionary Systems Approach." ...

17th Summer Institue in Statistical Genetics in Seattle, Washington

The 17th Summer Institute in Statistical Genetics will be held at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington on July 9 - 27, 2012.  See https://bilab.uga.edu/iob/wp-content/uploads/sites/47/2012/03/2012SISGBrochure.pdf for detailed information ...

Congratulations to Drs. Anuj Srivastava and Yupeng Wang

Congratulations to Drs. Anuj Srivastava and Yupeng Wang in successfully defending their PhD dissertation.   Dr. Srivastava will be joining the Jackson Laboratory as a Senior Research Scientist.  Dr. Wang will continue his current work at the Plant Genome Mapping Laboratory as a postdoctoral research fellow ...

Recently published paper by Eric Talevich, Amar Mirza and Professor Natarajan Kannan

IOB graduate student Eric Talevich, Biochemistry undergraduate Amar Mirza and IOB Assistant Professor Natarajan Kannan have published a research article in BMC Evolutionary Biology titled:  "Structural and Evolutionary Divergence of Eukaryotic Protein Kinases in Apicomplexa". The study examines a medically important protein superfamily as it appears in the malaria pathogen ...

IOB students participate in Assemblathon Competition

IOB graduate students Anuj Srivastava, Wenchi Chou and Timothy I. Shaw participated in the competition. The publication is available here ...

Jessica Kissinger Named Director, Institute of Bioinformatics

Genetics Associate Professor Jessica Kissinger is named as the second director of the Institute of Bioinformatics. She succeeds Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Professor and Eminent Scholar Ying Xu. The Institute was formed in 2004 by former Genetics Department Head Professor John McDonald ...

Tim Shaw receives ARCS Foundation Student Award

Tim Shaw received the UGA-ARCS Foundation Student Award for his HIV RNA work. Congrats, Tim! ...