NSF grant awarded for BBSI Bioinformatics and Computational Systems Biology Summer Institute at Iowa State University

The US National Science Foundation has awarded a 3-year, $450,000 grant to support the Summer Institute in Bioinformatics and Computational Systems Biology at Iowa State University. The summer institute, first organized in 2002, includes a 2-week intensive course covering topics in Genomics, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biology followed by a 6-week research experience in one of the participating laboratories for 10-12 undergraduate students from around the country. The institute, led by Dr. Brendel (Genetics, Development, and Cell Biology), Dr. Dickerson (Electrical and Computer Engineering) Dr. Dorman (Statistics), Dr. Honavar (Computer Science), and Dr. Jernigan (Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology) offers interdisciplinary training spanning biological and computational sciences. 

Iowa State University has one of the strongest graduate programs in the US in the field of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, supported in part by an Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training Award from the National Science Foundation. Plans are currently underway to offer an undergraduate degree in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology.