Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics
University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
The Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics conducts interdisciplinary research that seeks to combine burgeoning systems biology with complex systems sciences to better understand living systems. Through close interaction between theory, simulation and experimentation and between physics, chemistry and biology, we investigate the structure, dynamics and evolution of genetic regulatory networks and their behaviours – the missing link between genotype and phenotype. We use supercomputer power and state of the art functional genomics technologies to expand and deepen our understanding of cells and organisms.
Founded in 2004, the IBI is one of more than 50 institutes, centres and centres of excellences at the University of Calgary. The IBI is sponsored by iCORE and linked to the Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Machine Learning (AICML) at the University of Alberta.
By combining studies in biocomplexity and informatics, the IBI reaches beyond traditional mathematical modeling in biology. Its interest is in the fundamental principles that govern living organisms. It generates bold but formally rigorous and testable biological and computational theories and conducts experiments on genetic regulatory networks and cell behaviours inspired by or in order to evaluate the new theory. In addition to hosting a group of theorists with access to supercomputers the IBI houses molecular and cell biology laboratories equipped with state-of-art (post)genomic instruments and a high-throughput screening facility.
Research Topics Currently Explored at the IBI
- Bioinformatics
- Boolean network inference algorithms
- Cancer biology
- Cell and molecular biology
- Dynamical gene expression profiling
- Genomics
- High-throughput small molecule screening
- Molecular dynamics simulations
- Stem cell biology
- Theoretical physics
- Transcriptional regulatory networks and epistasis
Contact for outreach:
Phone: 403.220.3720
Ongoing international exchange:
Our "virtual institute" is a global group of more than 20 collaborating scholars from Canada, the United States, Mexico and Europe. This collaborative network characterizes the IBI and is generating leading-edge theoretical, simulation, and experimental work in Systems Biology.
Relevant quantitative and systems biology degree programs:
[pending information]