What are Math and Computer Science doing in Biology?

Date of Event: March 29, 2012

Posted: March 16, 2012

GRANVILLE, Ohio—Dan Gusfield, professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis branch, will offer a lecture: “What are Math and Computer Science doing in Biology?” at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 29, in the auditorium of Denison University’s Higley Hall (100 Ridge Road). The lecture, sponsored by the Doris G. Gordon Math Lecture Series, is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Dee Ghiloni at 740-587-6259 or visit www.denison.edu.

Gusfield will explore the importance of the emerging new fields of bioinformatics and computational biology, which employ large quantities of biological data. "If we only had the data," was the frequent lament in biology for most of its existence. But be careful what you wish for. In the last two decades many parts of biology have transformed from a data-poor science to a data-rich science, and now to a data-overload science. It started with the human genome project, but high-throughput, automated data accumulation has extended to many other parts of biology. Managing the data, and sometimes just storing it, is challenging. But extracting meaning and insight from the data is a much larger and more important challenge. Thoughtful computation is essential to the tasks of acquiring, managing and analyzing large-scale biological data. This has lead to the development of the areas of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. In this talk Gusfield will illustrate the role of mathematics and computer science in modern, data-intensive, biology, particularly in the areas of genomics and phylogenetics.

Calendar Listing:

CALENDAR LISTING, Denison University, Granville— Lecture: “What are Math and Computer Science doing in Biology?” at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 29, in the auditorium of Higley Hall (100 Ridge Road). Free and open to the public. For more information, contact Dee Ghiloni at 740-587-6259 or visit www.denison.edu.

About Denison:

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement and the cultivation of independent thinking.

For press inquiries:

Name: Ginny Sharkey
Position Title: Media Relations
Primary Email: sharkeyv@denison.edu
Business Phone: (740) 587-6266

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