Bioinformatics: The Hot Zone for Vaccine Discovery Research
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Presented By
Presented by the Microbiology Section
Speaker: Robert Zagursky, Wyeth Vaccines Research
Since the report of the first complete genomic sequence of a living organism, bioinformatics has been the central tool for genomic analysis, such as predicting genes, their associated function and cellular location, and how regulated. There have been many algorithms developed that facilitate these bioinformatic analyses, and for the most part yield accurate predictions. However, there are instances where the predictions seem to diverge from common dogma. In these cases, biological data are needed to support or refute the in silico predictions. I will present an overview of the algorithms we have applied in the discovery of vaccine targets of bacterial pathogens and show examples where bioinformatic predictions and biology have collided.