Title: Genomic Resources At Purdue University
www.genomics.purdue.edu

Speaker: Dr. Phillip San Miguel (pmiguel@purdue.edu)
Place: LAEB 2280; Tuesday, 4:30pm

Abstract

Breakthroughs in automation, miniaturization and exponentially increasing computational power all feed the current push to catalog and, one day, understand completely the vast interacting arrays of molecular machines that are life. In total, high throughput biological studies seek to know and control the molecular structures that make up all living organisms. They encompass a range of high throughput biological studies including structural and functional genomics, proteomics and metabolomics.

Genomics, a combination of high throughput molecular genetics and high speed computational analysis, seeks to vastly increase the depths of our understanding of genetics. Given its relatively simple linear-polymeric structure, studies of information-containing RNA and DNA lead the way. Although the most tractable of bio-molecules to study in depth, nucleic acids also encode much of the information driving the processes in a living cell. While the problems involved in producing high throughput genomic information are great, the production of information now vastly outpaces our ability to analyze it. Even storing the data in a fashion that facilitates its analysis (databasing) proves a complex undertaking. Deep analysis (data-mining) has scarcely begun.

This talk will address what tools are currently available at Purdue University for high throughput genomic studies and touch on informatics problems of both process and analysis.