Sallyport - The Magazine of Rice University - Winter 2002

Bio-Cartographers Unite! - Through the Sallyport
Winter 2002
VOL.58, NO.2
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.
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
Brian White 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 Bioinformatics
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 Bioinformatics
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
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