Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biological Informatics for FY 2006

本行动资助2006年度美国国家科学基金会生物信息学博士后研究奖学金。该奖学金支持生物学与信息、计算、数学和统计科学交叉领域的博士后研究和培训。该研究金的目标是向青年科学家提供培训，为从事生物信息学方面的研究和教育相结合的职业做准备。越来越需要在所有职业级别上进行生物信息学培训，预期通过这些研究金培训的研究员将在培训未来工作人员方面发挥重要作用。该奖学金的研究和培训计划的题目是“描述基因复制早期进化的比较基因组方法，重点是新基因的起源”。最近的基因组热潮提供了前所未有的获取基因组内完整的基因复制集的机会，为在不同物种中测试基因复制理论的预测提供了机会。密切相关基因组的成对互反比较被用于鉴定重复基因的祖先拷贝，评估不同类型基因重复的频率，评估不同基因组序列对新基因形成的相对贡献，并阐明不同基因重复机制的重要性。该研究员正在接受计算和软件技能方面的培训，以开发用于大规模生物信息学研究的工具。目的是设计和管理一个综合的公共数据库，描述不同基因组中进化年轻的基因复制，以促进其他科学家的进一步研究。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biological Informatics for FY 2006. The fellowship supports research and training at the postdoctoral level at the intersection of biology and the informational, computational, mathematical, and statistical sciences. The goal of the fellowship is to provide training to a young scientist in preparation for a career in biological informatics in which research and education will be integrated. There is an increasing need for training in biological informatics at all occupational levels, and it is expected that Fellows trained through these fellowships will play important roles in training the future workforce.The research and training plan for this fellowship is entitled "A Comparative Genomic Approach to Characterize the Early Evolution of Gene Duplicates with Emphasis on the Origin of Novel Genes." The recent genomic boom has offered unprecedented access to entire sets of gene duplicates within genomes, providing an opportunity to test predictions of gene-duplication theory in diverse species. Pair-wise reciprocal comparisons of closely related genomes are being employed to identify the ancestral copy of duplicated genes, assess the frequencies of different types of gene duplications, assess the relative contribution of diverse genomic sequences to the formation of novel genes and elucidate the importance of different mechanisms of gene duplication.The Fellow is receiving training in computational and software skills to develop tools for large-scale bioinformatics research. The aim is to design and manage a comprehensive public database characterizing evolutionarily young gene-duplicates across diverse genomes in order to facilitate further research by other scientists.