Dr Christoph Sensen
Applied Bioinformatics
Dr Sensen has received an iCORE Industrial Chair Establishment (ICE) grant of approximately $100,000 per year for five years, for a total of $500,000, to lead a $1 million research program in Applied Bioinformatics. iCORE's investment represents roughly 50 percent of the total budget. Sun Microsystems is also providing $100,000 per year for five years.
Research Program Overview
The interdisciplinary science of bioinformatics emerged over the last fifteen years as one of the most important research domains in Life Sciences. Large-scale data sets, derived from genomics, proteomics, gene expression and metabolomics experiments can only be understood when thoroughly analyzed using dedicated computational environments. The overall goal of such experiments is to understand how organisms are organized and how they function. There are two general ways of approaching biological and medical systems, either top-down or bottom-up. Both strategies are being pursued in parallel and quite often they need to be meshed in order to make progress in solving the particular problem at hand.
This laboratory is one of the few in Canada that in general uses top-down approach to characterize biological and medical systems. Much of the work done in this laboratory is computer-science centric. It solves problems that come with the size of the data sets, and their complexity. For instance, the fully annotated human genome, with its 3 billion base pair size, needs to be sectioned, and the sections have to handled seamlessly in order to be able to handle this information within the limited main memory of any computer available.
In this research program application, the team will expand its approach into the four-dimensional bioinformatics world, and to deal with spatial and temporal information. This will include the integration of advanced imaging information with gene expression studies, metabolic and physiological information, patient data records and proteomics data. The initial models will be built for the human body. It will be able to map information from movement sensors onto the model and hopefully over time be able to fully populate the model with simulations for blood-flow and airflow in the lungs. This research program will support the computer science side of the work. This will include the expansion of the existing Java 3D-based tool, called Jabiru, to handle the large diversity of data needed to integrate into a coherent model; the development of new approaches for information compression; and the implementation of new interactive visualization environments, which allow scientists to seamlessly explore very complex results using the CAVE automated virtual reality environment in Dr Sensen’s laboratory.
Biographical Information
Dr Christoph W. Sensen is a tenured full professor at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and an adjunct professor at the department of computer science. He heads the Sun Center of Excellence for Visual Genomics, one of the largest Bioinformatics Laboratories in Canada, and is the Principal Investigator of Genome Canada’s bioinformatics platform, which is coordinated by Genome Prairie.
Dr Sensen's research is focused on genomics-related bioinformatics, including automated genome analysis and annotation and the creation of three-dimensional (spatial and temporal) computer models. His laboratory features the first Java 3D(tm)-enabled CAVE worldwide, which is used to analyze and visualize complex genomics data.
He received his PhD in Cologne, Germany. His laboratory has been involved in Genomics and Bioinformatics for more than seven years. Much of the current work is revolving around tool integration and the visualization of complex genomic datasets. Together with Terry Gaasterland's lab at the Rockefeller University, he has been involved in the MAGPIE project since 1996. MAGPIE is a fully automated genome analysis and annotation engine, currently used to analyze and annotate more than 50 publicly available genomes.
Research Team
This award will fund the salaries of the Chair, the assistant professor, postdoctoral Fellows, PhD students and/or Master’s students in computer science.
Related Links:
March 15, 2005
LAUNCH WEBCAST
[HIGH
BANDWIDTH WEBCAST]
[LOW
BANDWIDTH WEBCAST]
[PHOTOS] |
