The Laboratory of Bioinformatics, which is the newest key lab of the Ministry of Education (MOE) that operates out of Tsinghua University, was formally opened at the life science building June 27.
Attending the opening ceremony were heads of the MOE, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the National Natural Science Foundation, Gong Ke, vice president of Tsinghua University, Chi Huisheng, vice president of Peking University, and academicians and experts of many related fields. Teachers and students from the departments of life science and technology, and the school of information science and technology also participated in the event.
Bioinformatics was developed in the 1990s as a way to analyze the abundant research data obtained from traditional and modern biology experimental techniques such as the high throughput auto gene sequence technique. Developed from genome informatics, bioinformatics plays a unique role in the fields of gene data analysis, the search for new genes, molecular evolution, analysis and prediction of protein structure and function, and drug design. As a burgeoning interdisciplinary field, bioinformatics is related to biology, informatics, computer science and mathematics, and physics.
The Laboratory of Bioinformatics of Tsinghua University is based on the research achievements of bioinformatics carried out by the Tsinghua Bioinformatics Research Institute, the department of biology, the department of automation, and the department of computer science and technology.
Zheng Yumin, a professor of computer science and technology, was named director of the lab. Another 15 celebrated scholars in the field of bioinformatics and other related fields were appointed as supervisors of the lab.
Following the opening ceremony, a series of lectures were given by Academician Zhang Chunting, dean of the department of life science of Tianjin University; Dr. Tang Chao from the NEC research institute in the U.S.; Chen Runsheng, a researcher of the Biophysics Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences; and Academician Li Yanda, dean of the school of informatics science and technology.
(Liu Wanli 4/7/02)
