Spring 2001 Seminar Series - Thursday, April 12, 2001
University of Minnesota
School of Statistics
College of Liberal Arts
Genomics: Global Views of Biology
Nevin Dale Young
Departments of Plant Pathology and Plant Biology
University of Minnesota
Thursday, April 12, 2001
4:00 PM,
B10
Ford Hall
Minneapolis, East Bank Campus
Social at 3:30 PM,
300
Ford Hall
Abstract
DNA and protein sequence data are growing exponentially. As of January, 2001,
more than 3 billion base pairs of sequence data had been deposited into Genbank,
the largest and most comprehensive public data base. The entire genome sequences
of several organisms are complete, including Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly)
and the model plant Arabidopsis thailiana. Indeed, public sequence data are
doubling every eighteen months and will continue to do so well into the future.
With this avalanche of data, how do biologists make sense of the new information
and put it to practical use? This presentation will briefly review the tools
used in the emerging field of genomics along with the databases and
bioinformatic methods that organize and analyze DNA and protein sequence data.
Bioinformatic strategies to compare novel sequences to those already in the
database, reveal functionally significant motifs, and perform cluster analysis
will be highlighted with specific examples.