BGU Bioinfo and computational biology community
In recent years, biology is stepping into the big data era. New technologies produce unprecedented amount of information: sequenced genomes, gene expression data, proteomics etc. Effective use of these data richness is a major challenge in current biology. Computational biology cope with this challenge by the collaborative work of biologists, computer scientists, engineers and mathematicians. Together, computational biologists aim to create better and more comprehensive models of biological systems. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev meets the computational biology challenge in three fronts: first and foremost, the university offers three educational tracks to train the new generation of computational biologists, fluent in both biology and computation; second, a growing number of scientific groups focus on computational biology in their research; and finally, the Bioinformatics Core Facility makes bioinformatics accessible for experimental groups from Health and Life Science.
Educational tracks
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev offers three BSC programs that combine Life Science and Computer Science. The bioinformatics track (Computer Science), and the biophysics/bioinformatics track (Chemistry) are more focused on the Computer Science aspects, whereas the computational biology track (Life Sciences) emphasizes biology. For more details on the Bioinformatics and Biophysics/Bioinformatics tracks, contact Chen Keasar[chen.keasar@gmail.com]. For more details on the computational biology track, contact Tal Shay[talshay@bgu.ac.il].
Groups
Department of Computer Science
Department of Life Sciences
Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Genetics. Systems Immunology
Department of Computer Science and Department of Life Sciences
Department of Computer Science
Department of Chemistry. Molecular Biophysics of Cell
Department of Computer Science
Department of Chemistry
Department of Public Health. Genetic epidemiology of autism
Department of Life Sciences. Microbial ecogenomics
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Computational Biology
Department of Life Sciences. Ecological Complexity Lab
Department of Microbiology and Immunology. Using computation and systems biology approached to improve precision cancer medicine
Department of Life Sciences. Immunoinformatics
Department of Computer Science
Department of Clinical Biochemistry & Pharmacology, and National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev. Using network & computational systems biology to unravel mechanisms of disease
Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering. Computational Cell Dynamics
Department of Computer Science
Bioinformatics core facility, headed by Vered Caspi
• Individual consultations and training in the use of Bioinformatics tools
• High-level computational and statistical analysis of large, complex data sets
Courses:
• Introduction to bioinformatics - Fall semester undergrad course (Life Sciences)- Tal Shay
• Computational questions in biology for non-biologists – Spring semester third year and msc students course (Life Sciences - Open to all) – Tal Shay
• Introduction to bioinformatics 1 – Spring semester undergrad course (Computer Science) – Chen Keasar
• Introduction to bioinformatics 2– Spring semester undergrad course (Computer Science) – Chen Keasar
• Optimization, pattern matching & search algorithms – Fall semester undergrad course (Computer Science) – Yefim Diniz
• Computational structural modeling of proteins: Methods and applications - Fall semester, undergrad & graduate course (Chemistry and Life Science) – Yifat Miller
• Computational systems biology: from molecules to networks - Fall semester, undergrad & graduate course (Faculty of Health Sciences) - Esti Yeger-Lotem
• Data Science in Cell Imaging (Software and Information Engineering - open to all) - Assaf Zaritsky
Related networks and centers:
The Israeli Society for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (ISBCB)
Surveillance and Pathogenomics – applied research and service provision for genomic analysis of pathogens of clinical and public health importance
The Center for Evolutionary Genomics and Medicine