Computer Science

Colloquium Details

Toward a Problem Solving Environment for Comparative Genomics

Abstract

There is considerable evidence that the genomes of a wide variety of organisms contain large numbers of duplicate genes. Understanding the origin of these genes can help answer important questions about vertebrate evolution, and comparative genomic studies of duplicate genes may eventually shed light on human diseases associated with extra copies of genes.

This talk describes software developed for a project that used a search through several complete genomes to locate duplicate copies of genes. The system coordinates several different software tools that each perform a small part of the overall task. Our long-range goal is to develop a problem solving environment that will assist future projects in comparative genomics. There are several opportunities for computer science research related to data management, "middle-ware" for distributed computing, and scientific visualization.