Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Informatics for FY 2003

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Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Interdisciplinary Informatics are sponsored jointly by the Directorates for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) and Biological Sciences (BIO) to encourage research and training that cross the traditional disciplinary boundaries between them. These fellowships provide opportunities for interdisciplinary research and educational activities in biology and informatics to a wide range of recent doctoral recipients (biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, statisticians, computer scientists, and others) who seek to conduct research on biological questions using informatics tools and methods. It is expected that the Fellows trained through these fellowships will play an important role in training the future workforce. Postdoctoral training in informatics will permit junior scientists trained in biology, mathematical, chemical, and physical sciences to play key roles in developing new quantitative tools and methods that will advance informatics in biology and other fields. The research and training plan for this fellowship is entitled "Using Bayesian statistical methods to identify coevolving protein domains." Bayesian phylogenetic methods can identify protein sequence sites that have undergone evolutionary adaptation. The goal of this research is to extend these methods to detect correlated mutations, and to use this information to identify sites of interaction between protein domains. These putative epitopes will be compared to experimental data to test hypotheses regarding specific protein interactions and their role in the evolution of cellular networks.