BIOINFORMATICS HIGHLIGHTS

The Board of Trustees Boston University approved the PhD Program in Bioinformatics in May, 1999, making it one of the first such programs in the U.S.  From the outset, it has had one overriding goal: to educate talented and highly motivated women and men for leadership in the biological sciences of the post-genomic era. The Program provides unique interdisciplinary training in the science, engineering, medicine and ethics of twenty-first-century cell biology. It includes some 50 faculty from five Schools and Colleges: The College of Arts and Science, the College of Engineering, the School of Medicine, the School of Dental Medicine and the School of Public Health, as well as a group of outstanding adjunct faculty from industrial and non-profit organizations.  Our curriculum focuses on the molecular biology and physics of the cell, and emphasizes the use of advanced mathematics and computation.

In addition to courses that integrate biology with the information sciences and engineering, the educational program offers academic and industrial rotations, internships, and a student seminar series. It also includes training designed to sensitize students to the ethical and legal implications of emerging technologies.  Boston University and the wider Boston area also provide rich opportunities to attend seminars and workshops presented by leaders of the international bioinformatics and systems biology communities.

The research program includes state-of-the-art topics in systems biology, computational modeling of regulatory and metabolic networks, small-molecule and macromolecule docking, comparative genomics, protein design, genomic and proteomic biotechnology, microarray engineering and analysis, pharmacogenomics, structural biology, large-scale modeling of biological systems, RNA, computational studies of cancer and neurological disorders and functional genomics, synthetic gene networks and molecular computing and genetics. The program creates an exciting, dynamic environment in which students learn from each other as well as from the faculty. Click here for a list of student publications.

The 2009 Student-Organized Symposium on Bioinformatics and Human Health
Join us to hear a panel of scientific innovators from the academic and private sectors share their work and ideas as they relate to this highly important field.  This year's keynote speakers are:
Manolis Kellis, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory / The Broad Institute, MIT
Boris Tabakoff, Ph.D., Professor and Chairman, Department of Pharmacology, University of Colorado, Denver
Dietrich Stephan, Ph.D., Co-founder and Chief Science Officer, Navigenics, Inc.
Roy Kishony, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School
Jorge Conde, M.S., M.B.A., President and CEO, Knome, Inc.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3rd, 2009, 10AM - 6PM
BU Life Science and Engineering Building (LSEB) Room B01
24 Cummington Street, Boston, MA 02215
The Symposium is free and open to the general public.  For a full description of the day's events, including speaker profiles, talk titles, and directions for getting to BU, please visit: (http://people.bu.edu/franzosa/studentsymposium.html).

The Ninth Annual International Workshop on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology

The Ninth Annual International Workshop on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology will take place from July 27-29, 2009 at Boston University. This student-focused event is part of a collaborative educational program involving the BU Graduate Program in Bioinformatics, the International Research Training Group (IRTG) in Berlin and the Joint Bioinformatics Education Program of Kyoto University and University of Tokyo. Held every year since 2001, it provides doctoral students an opportunity to present and discuss their research objectives, approaches and results in the emerging fields of genomics, systems biology and bioinformatics.

The Eighth Annual International Workshop on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology

The Eighth Annual International Workshop on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology took place from June 9-11 at Lake Zeuthen near Berlin. This student-focused event is part of a collaborative educational program involving the BU Graduate Program in Bioinformatics, the International Research Training Group (IRTG) in Berlin and the Joint Bioinformatics Education Program of Kyoto University and University of Tokyo. Held every year since 2001, it provides doctoral students an opportunity to present and discuss their research objectives, approaches and results in the emerging fields of genomics, systems biology and bioinformatics. Proceedings of the Workshop are published as a monogram each year.  In 2009 Boston University will host the Ninth Workshop.

Bioinformatics Program Receives $3.2 Million NSF Graduate Training Grant

The Program in Bioinformatics recently received (July 2007) a five-year IGERT training grant from the National Science Foundation.   The IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) Program funds fellowships at a stipend level of $30,000 per year to support interdisciplinary and innovative graduate education and training, as well as international student exchanges for collaborative research.  The Boston University Bioinformatics Program was one of approximately 20 programs chosen for funding from over 400 proposals reviewed in 2007.  It is also one of the few programs to receive two IGERT grants (the initial grant was awarded in 1999). To find out more about available IGERT stipends for PhD students entering the program in Fall 2009, click here

The research theme for the IGERT grant is Biological Networks, the study of the complex, multi-component systems, or networks, that underlie the functions of the living cell.   We describe and model these networks in terms of their components, interactions among the components, regulatory properties, sub-networks or pathways, and system dynamics in steady-state and in response to perturbations.  Leading areas of research in the Bioinformatics Program where network research has become important include (1) interactions of proteins with DNA to regulate gene transcription, (2) biochemical metabolic pathways, and (3) signaling pathways for cellular response to hormones and other molecules which modify activity and control early development.
For more information on IGERT fellowships, click here.

NIH Graduate Partnership Program (GPP)

Students may request consideration for admission to a special partnership program between Boston University and the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) – the NIH bioinformatics division that, among other things, maintains Genbank.  If admitted to the GPP, they will complete their academic requirements for the PhD at Boston University, then select a research director at NCBI and complete their thesis research in Bethesda, MD. A limited number of fellowships is available for participation in this NIH-BU partnership. The purpose of these fellowships is to stimulate collaboration between BU faculty and NIH intramural scientists, and to provide Bioinformatics students with the opportunity to engage in research in computational laboratories on the NIH campus (possibly in collaboration with experimental laboratories at NIH). NIH is considered to be the premiere biomedical research establishment in the world. Applicants selected as candidates for this program will be invited to interview at both NIH and Boston University in February 2009.


Masters Program in Clinical Bioinformatics

This program trains physician-scientists who seek to be leaders in applying and stimulating the development of post-genomic technologies to clinical research and the practice of medicine. For details click here. (MD Track)

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