Although this event is now over, please feel free to browse the links below
to familiarize yourself with the many valuable resources coming out of this workshop.
BEDROCK Project Home Page
NSF Home Page
            Terre Haute     
sep
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March 11 - 14, 2004

Indiana State University


This short course will focus on several different ways that the analysis of molecular data is being applied to solv

e current biological problems in areas such as medicine, agriculture, conservation, and evolution. The relationships between evolutionary theory and the analysis of molecular sequence and structure data will be addressed. A wide range of sub-disciplines that use bioinformatic analysis will be drawn upon. The focus will be on learning about the causal bases for bioinformatic analyses along with a philosophy of education: problem posing, problem-solving, and peer review/publication (BioQUEST's three P's ).

The laboratory sessions deal with medical, cell biology, and conservation examples. The lectures relate to: Evolutionary Bioinformatics: Orthology, Paralogy, Xenology, Phylogenetic Probes and Phylogenetic Profiling; BioQUEST's Curricular Philosophy: Problem Posing, Problem Solving and Peer Review / Publication; and, Theoretical, mathematical and computational aspects that complicate bioinformatics: homoplasies, computational complexity, numerous tree topologies, scoring multiple sequence alignments, long branch attraction problems, rate variations. The discussions focus on how to analyze data, how to implement bioinformatics investigations across the curriculum, and how to develop sustained collaboration. For more details, visit the BEDROCK home page and follow the Workshops link to explore recent workshops.

The workshop is designed for:

  • biologists and chemists interested in incorporating bioinformatics into their curricula, and who enjoy collaborative learning such as has been developed and diffused by the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium.
  • mathematicians and computer scientists curious about how their fields impact bioinformatics or computational molecular biology. We encourage you to come and interact with biologists to develop a better idea of the various questions that arise with respect to teaching and learning elements of bioinformatics.
This short course serves several purposes:
As a learning resource for faculty across the sciences who are interested in developing their understanding of the biological, computational mathematical aspects of bioinformatic analyses.
As a forum for undergraduate educators to collaborate in the development of courses and/or curricula that incorporate bioinformatics.
As an opportunity for developing undergraduate research programs in bioinformatics.

    Workshop Leaders

    John R. Jungck
    John Greenler
    Tony Weisstein

Beloit College, Wisconsin
Department of Biology
     Sam Donovan
University of Pittsburgh
Department of Instruction and Learning
    Stacey Kiser Lane Community College, Oregon
Biology Department
For more information please
contact Sue Risseeuw or Tia Johnson (608/363-2012).

Sponsored by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DUE/CCLI-ND)
and