The Human Genome Project has spurred extraordinary developments in our ability to characterize cellular systems in high-throughput fashion. Polymorphism, methylation, gene expression, and proteomics...
Apr, 01, 2008
Transparent peer review, replication studies, and journals of negative results all suggest change is on the horizon
As I was writing this editorial, I learned about yet another scientific paper being retracted. This time it was a genetics paper in Science, one of the hundreds of retractions that the blog...
Sep, 01, 2011
Students, not faculty, are the ones in charge
Outwardly, the Biomedical Computation at Stanford (BCATS) conference resembles other academic conferences: Researchers converge to hear about the latest developments in their field and to...
Jan, 01, 2008
Computation helps evaluate the nature of the NIH research portfolio in ways that were previously very difficult.
What biomedical research does the federal government fund? How is it allocated across important diseases? Has that changed over time? Answering these questions at any level of detail is tougher than...
Jun, 08, 2012
The National Institutes of Health are on a mission: To understand and tackle the problems of human health. To make that daunting problem approachable, 15 of the 20 institutes divvy up human health...
Oct, 05, 2012
From hardened software to scientific productivity, the NCBCs have changed the landscape for biomedical computing. What will happen when their funding expires?
It has been eight years since the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded the first National Centers for Biomedical Computing (NCBCs). With two or three years remaining in the program (...
Oct, 19, 2012
Simulating how cells form patterns.
Normal zebrafish have stripes, but mutant forms may display spots, blotches, or labyrinthine patterns. It’s a scenario that Rudyard Kipling might turn into a wonderful “just-so”...
Jul, 01, 2008
As algorithms evolve, computing power explodes, and scientists solve a greater number of 3-D protein structures, computer-aided design has the potential to dramatically cut the cost and time of drug discovery
Once upon a time, not long ago, HIV/AIDS was a scourge, killing anyone who contracted the deadly virus. Now, many people are living with the disease, which they control with drugs initially developed...
Jul, 01, 2007
Researchers at the Mayo Clinic and IBM have each built computer pipelines for extracting useful information from unstructured notes in patient charts, such as physician’s notes and pathology...
Jul, 01, 2009
Advances in visualization changing work flows for understanding molecular dynamics, tracking cell movements, and designing interventional procedures
The pathway from raw data to valuable visualization of molecules, cells or organs being simulated over time involves several potentially painstaking steps. Typically, researchers must generate a set...
Sep, 02, 2011