Bioinformatics and Genomics Department

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte has recently established a Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics (BiG). We define Bioinformatics as the discovery, development and application of novel computational technologies to help solve important biological problems. Research in our department encompasses both Bioinformatics and Computational Biology as defined by the NIH. The offices of the Bioinformatics and Genomics Department are permanently located in the Bioinformatics Building. The Bioinformatics Research Center is an interdisciplinary center involving faculty in departments including Computer Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Statistics, and Software and Information Systems.

As of August 2009, the Bioinformatics Research Center re-located to its $35M, 94,000 g.s.f. building on the Charlotte Research Institute Campus of UNC Charlotte. The building offers space for both wet and dry laboratories, and includes core facilities for molecular biology, proteomics, and computing. Additional genomics and proteomics core facilities are available through a UNC Charlotte partnership with the Carolinas Medical Center.

The BRC has also taken a leadership role in developing Bioinformatics programs in collaboration with the developers of the North Carolina Research Campus, a billion-dollar, 350-acre research park that will be home to the research programs of a large number of private biotechnology companies as well as university and medical research programs. The BRC will develop a Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics at the North Carolina Research Campus at Kannapolis, eventually hiring several faculty with research interests at both locations. This will be a research, educational and service Center with a focus on the development of novel analytical methods for knowledge discovery in large biological datasets. Research at the Center will enable basic and applied researchers to ask and answer complex questions in molecular and population biology, to manage and navigate the vast data sets that are generated by modern molecular biology methods, and to translate the results into practical benefits through understanding of the interacting effects of health, nutrition, development, and behavior.

                                             

                        To see the transformation of the Bioinformatics building, click here

The new Bioinformatics Building, August, 2009