The Bioinformatics research area was created by the demand for multi-skilled researchers to work at the interface between computer science and biomedical science. This field deals with the development and use of computational and mathematical methods for acquiring, storing, analyzing and interpreting biological data. Biological research generates typically a huge quantity of data and it is continuously growing with a shift in emphasis from gene and proteins disclosure, to the analysis of how they interact in complex networks which control biological systems, and research into how this relates to human health. This transition has increased the importance of bioinformatics and biomedical informatics and raises key challenges which make it imperative that computer scientists work closely with biologists and physicians to refine existing tools and develop new ones.

 

The Bioinformatics Unit of Biocant joins computer science engineers with expertise in biomedical problems and with experience on the development and use of software for these areas.

We aim to establish solid collaborations with private and public institutions that operate in biological or health fields, and to construct a centre that can be a national reference in applied bioinformatics.

We are currently working in the following research lines: 

 

Genetic disease screening

Integration of clinical and genomic data

Information systems for microarrays

Automatic construction of DNA probes

DNA primary structure analisys

Data mining in Biomedicine

Biomedical computation tools