Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biological Informatics for FY 2006

这一行动为NSF 2006财年生物信息学博士后研究奖学金提供了资金。该奖学金支持生物学与信息科学、计算科学、数学科学和统计科学交叉的博士后水平的研究和培训。该研究金的目标是为一名青年科学家提供培训，为从事生物信息学的职业做准备，在生物信息学中将把研究和教育结合起来。各个职业层次对生物信息学的培训需求日益增加，预计通过这些奖学金培训的研究员将在培训未来的劳动力方面发挥重要作用。该奖学金的研究和培训计划题为“以比较基因组学方法表征基因复制的早期进化，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途径，获得了基因组中的整套基因复制，为在不同物种中测试基因复制理论的预测提供了机会。密切相关的基因组的配对相互比较被用来识别重复基因的祖先副本，评估不同类型基因复制的频率，评估不同基因组序列对新基因形成的相对贡献，并阐明不同基因复制机制的重要性。该研究员正在接受计算和软件技能方面的培训，以开发大规模生物信息学研究的工具。其目的是设计和管理一个全面的公共数据库，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.