Bioinformatics
Jan Peter Nap, cluster leader
Bioinformatics relates to the in silico storage, manipulation, analysis and mining of large omics datasets. It is at the cross-roads between molecular biology, computer science and mathematics and is hugely important in converting (abstract) quantitative data into biologically-relevant knowledge.
CBSG has access to the full gamut of genomics technology platforms - covering all molecular levels from DNA, RNA, protein and metabolite. Furthermore, CBSG scientists generate large amounts of phenotypic information on quantitative / qualitative quality aspects, morphology, yield parameters, gene function data etc. This diversity of data and the size of the datasets produced require dedicated state-of-the-art approaches towards data management and mining. The CBSG Bioinformatics programme aims not only to facilitate this but also will enable us to go beyond this and join all these pieces of information together to see even more of the picture behind the puzzle.