CSC

	Tehdyt toimenpiteet University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University TUCS Bioinformatics Laboratory Group leader: Tapio Salakoski Home page: http://www.tucs.fi/research/labs/bioinf.php Tucs Bioinformatics Laboratory is a unit of Turku Centre for Computer Science (TUCS) and Department of Information Technology, University of Turku. TUCS is a joint special unit of the three universities in Turku: University of Turku, Åbo Akademi University, and Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, coordinating all university research and education in the field of information technology in Turku. TUCS Bioinformatics Laboratory was established in 2001 to work jointly with the Bioinformatics group at Turku Centre for Biotechnology, a joint biocentre of University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University, acting as a core facility providing all the researchers with equipment, services, and expertise in biotechnology. TUCS Bioinformatics Laboratory is headed by Professor Tapio Salakoski. The laboratory 'currently involves senior researchers Dr. Jorma Boberg, Dr. Jouni Järvinen, and Dr. Alexandr M ylläri, as well as some 15 PhD and MSc students. The mains sources of funding include TEKES, the National Technology Agency of Finland, and the TUCS Graduate School. Professor Salakoski is a board member of SocBIN, Society of Bioinformatics in Nordic Countries, organizing annually the International Bioinformatics Conference. Academic collaboration include groups at University of Turku, Turku Centre for Biotechnology, Åbo Akademi University, University of Tampere, Universite de Franche-Comte, France, Karolinska Institute, Sweden, Stanford University, USA, National Institute of Telecommunications, Poland, Tokyo Denki University, Japan, and University of Luton, the U.K. Importantly, the group collaborates actively with several biotechnical, pharmaceutical, bioinformatics, language technology, and software companies. A new spin-off bioinformatics company Genolyze started in 2003 involving members and collaborators of the laboratory. The group's expertise lies in developing and applying machine learning and knowledge-based analysis and modeling techniques in a multi-disciplinary domain. Current research at the laboratory is focused to the development of bioinformatics methods, resources, andtools for discovering protein-protein interactions in scientific literature (Bio-NLP); gene expression and promoter analysis; and modelling the relationships between protein sequence, structure, and function, as well as cellular signalling and metabolic networks. We are also developing bioinformatics databases and analysis tools. TUCS Bioinformatics Laboratory organizes bioinformatics education as a specialized study line in the Computer Science curriculum at the University of Turku since 2001, currently comprising some 20 courses. In 2006, University of Turku and University of Tampere will launch a joint International Bioinformatics Master's Degree Program. Back to the group list