Bioinformatics: Applications for Studying Gene and Genome Duplication

John Conery
Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Oregon

Abstract: Bioinformatics is a relatively new area of research, combining elements of math, statistics, computer science, and molecular and evolutionary biology to study the origin, structure, and function of genes. This talk is an overview of bioinformatics for math and computer science majors. After a short introduction to molecular biology, I will discuss important algorithms for comparing gene sequences, and talk about a new algorithm that was developed at the University of Oregon and used in a study of duplicate genes. I will conclude with a brief overview of current projects in bioinformatics and other computer science research opportunities for M.S. and Ph.D. students at the University of Oregon.