Rahn, Kerstin;Suehnel, Juergen - The Jena Centre for Bioinformatics

ECCB 2002 Poster sorted by: Author | Number

Next | Previous poster (in order of the view you have selected)

Title: The Jena Centre for Bioinformatics	P127
Rahn, Kerstin; Suehnel, Juergen rake@imb-jena.de, jsuehnel@imb-jena.de Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, Jena Centre for Bioinformatics, Beutenbergstr. 11, D-07745 Jena/ Germany

The newly established Jena Centre for Bioinformatics (JCB; www.imb-jena.de/jcb/) is an interdisciplinary centre encompassing research groups from

- Friedrich Schiller University (FSU; www.uni-jena.de)
- University of Applied Sciences (www.fh-jena.de)
- Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology (MPICE; www.ice.mpg.de)
- Hans Knöll Institute for Natural Products Research (HKI; www.hki-jena.de)
- Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMB; www.imb-jena.de)

and the companies

- BioControl Jena GmbH (www.tip-jena.de/biocontrol)
- Clondiag Chip Technologies GmbH (www.clondiag.com)
- EnTec - Gesellschaft für Endokrinologische Technologie mbH (www.entec-jena.de).

The JCB has a mission to promote interdisciplinary research and to establish study and training courses in bioinformatics and computational biology (see Figure for start page of the JCB web server).

The Bioinformatics study course offered by the FSU constitutes the central part of educational efforts in computational biology and bioinformatics in the Jena area. In addition, a minor subject Biomedicine for computer science students has been set up. The University of Applied Sciences integrates new medical informatics and bioinformatics modules into the Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering courses. Finally, a JCB Training Centre is being set up that is primarily aimed at postgraduate education.

The current expertise of JCB members is focussing on the following research areas: genome analysis und functional genomics, analysis of expression data, drug design, structural bioinformatics, modelling and prediction of three-dimensional structures of biological macromolecules and of their interactions, process optimisation and population genetics.

The IMB Genome Analysis Department (M. Platzer) is involved in many genome sequencing projects including the human genome (see Figure) and Dictyostelium discoideum [1], for example. The experimental know-how in the IMB Departments of Structural Biology/Crystallography (R. Hilgenfeld) and Molecular Biophysics/NMR Spectroscopy (M. Görlach) is supplemented by work in structural bioinformatics [2], modelling and simulation of biological macromolecules [3] and database development [4] in the Biocomputing (J. Sühnel) and Theoretical Biophysics (M. Zacharias) Research Groups. The HKI Department of Applied Microbiology (R. Guthke) deals with analysis, modelling and optimisation of biological processes with an emphasis on fuzzy modelling for the analysis of expression data [5]. A Research Group at the MPICE (K. Schmid) works in the field of population genetics [6]. Biosignal analysis is the central research theme both in the Neural Network Group at the FSU Institute for Medical Statistics, Computer Sciences and Documentation (H. Witte) and in the Medical Engineering Group of the University of Applied Sciences (A. Voss) [7,8]. The research focus in the Bioinformatics Group at the FSU Informatics Institute (R. Backofen) is on protein structure prediction and, from an algorithmic point of view, on constraint programming for bioinformatics applications.

Three newly established Junior Groups are intended to strengthen the JCB expertise in pattern recognition (U. Möller, HKI) and systems biology (T. Wilhelm, IMB; P. Dittrich, FSU, Institutefor Informatics).

BioControl Jena GmbH develops intelligent technologies for process optimisation [5]. Clondiag Chip Technologies GmbH is focusing on systems development for high-throughput genomics and diagnostics. The products include the imaging tool IconoClust for the analysis of hybridisation and molecular interaction patterns of slide arrays and biochips and the novel Laboratory Information and Management System PARTISAN arrayLIMS for bioarray management solutions. EnTec - Gesellschaft für Endokrinologische Technologie mbH is a pharmaceutical company focusing on drug discovery for endocrine therapy. In addition to experimental techniques the company also uses structural bioinformatics and protein structure-based drug design approaches [9]. The company is a subsidiary of Jenapharm GmbH & Co KG and is thus part of Schering´s global R&D efforts. EnTec succeeded in discovering three new compounds actually undergoing phase II clinical trials.

The JCB promotes especially projects that combine experimental and computational approaches. Currently the following three experimental Research Groups from the Medical Faculty of the FSU are involved in JCB projects: Molecular Biology (S. Wölfl) [10], Molecular Cell Biology (R. Wetzker) und Experimental Rheumatology (R. Kinne).

The long-term research goal of the JCB is focused on modelling and analysis of Molecular Communication Processes in Normal and Pathological States of Cells. This is to be done in close collaboration with the Centre for Design and Structure in Biology, the Interdisciplinary Centres for Scientific Computing and for Clinical Research and the Collaborative Research Project on Multifunctional Signalling Proteins.

[1] G. Glöckner, G. et al., Nature 2002, 418, 79-85.
[2] M. Brandl, M. S. Weiss, A. Jabs, J. Sühnel, R. Hilgenfeld, J. Mol. Biol. 2001, 307, 357-377.
[3] M. Zacharias, Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 2000, 10, 311-317.
[4] J. Reichert, J. Sühnel, Nucleic Acids Res. 2002, 30, 253-254.
[5] R. Guthke, W. Schmidt-Heck, D. Hahn, M. Pfaff, M. in: Zimmerman, H.-J. et al. (eds.) International Series in Intelligent Technologies: Advances in Computational Intelligence and Learning: Methods and Applications. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, 2002, pp. 475-488.
[6] K. J. Schmid, C. F. Aquadro, Genetics 2001, 159, 589-598.
[7] L. Leistritz, E. Kochs, M. Galicki, H. Witte, Clin. Neurophysiol. 2002, 113, 930-935.
[8] M. Baumert, T. Walther, J. Hopfe, H. Stepan, R. Faber, A. Voss, Med. Biol. Eng. Comput. 2002, 40, 241-245.
[9] D. Payet, A. Hillisch, N. Lowe, S. Diekmann, A. Travers, J. Mol. Biol. 1999, 294, 79-91.
[10] T. C. Kroll, S. Wölfl, Nucleic Acids Res. 2002, 30, e50.