EMBL CentresCentre for Computational Biology
An important aspect of the Centre for Computational Biology will be to establish mechanisms for facilitating the use of computational biology resources across the broad EMBL scientific community, by providing training and online help, as well as by hosting user groups that will bring computational and experimental scientists together.
Due to the many heterogeneous skills and activities in computational biology, a compromise had to be found so that the Centre can be beneficial to many people but is sufficiently specialised to be able to function efficiently. Initially the Centre will focus on three important aspects:
- Information and 'know-how' dissemination across EMBL to increase the awareness and efficiency with which this discipline is used;
- Training and education to increase the skill level in this expanding field;
- The promotion of specific scientific projects to foster collaborations across units.
The Centre will bring together experimentalists and computational biologists from different disciplines. It is expected that the participants will range from PhD students to group leaders. For efficient information retrieval and communication, a web platform will be implemented. Several measures for training at different levels will be installed. Furthermore, a first scientific project has been launched that utilises different technologies in diverse species for comparative spatial and temporal gene expression analysis. Other aspects of considerable interest such as data integration or method dissemination will be covered in the context of specific projects in other centres.