Welcome to BIB

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Department photo 2016

Albert Sherman Center

The Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology occupies 7,000 square-feet on the 4th and 5th floors of the Albert Sherman Center (ASC). The ASC cutting edge design integrates research and teaching in an exciting collaborative environment.

Albert Sherman Center

Protein commonly screened for in pregnancy is linked to gestational diabetes

New research by Silvia Corvera, MD, and Tiffany Moore Simas, MD, MPH, MEd, show that low levels of a protein commonly seen in screening tests for chromosomal disorders is associated with adipose tissue remodeling, glucose resistance and gestational diabetes mellitus in pregnant women.

Nature, Volume 587 Issue 7833, 12 November 2020

Although genome sequencing is increasingly routine for humans, it remains much less common in most other species, and only a small portion of the diversity of life is represented in genomic databases. In this issue, three papers take steps to redress the balance, exploring uncharted branches of vertebrate evolution. In one paper, Guojie Zhang and colleagues from the Bird 10,000 Genomes Project compare 363 genomes representing more than 90% of avian families, including 267 newly sequenced bird species. In another paper, Elinor Karlsson and her colleagues in the Zoonomia Project describe their analysis of 240 genomes representing more than 80% of placental mammal families, including 122 newly sequenced species. To analyze these massive data sets, both teams used new software called Progressive Cactus, which is described by Benedict Paten and co-workers in the third paper. The software can align thousands of genomes spanning hundreds of millions of years of evolution by reconstructing ancestral genomes using cactus graphs. The cover image reflects this process, using stylized mathematical graphs to highlight the software used and create constellations of some species sequenced in this week’s issue.

GSBS Student Awards

Outstanding Mentor Award

Pranitha Vangala, GSBS Student
Garber Lab

Darwin's Dogs project

Does dog DNA hold clues to better human health?

Karlsson Lab news....

Nature: Dog DNA probed for clues to human psychiatric ills

Pet project hunts genetic links to behaviour by polling owners on their companions’ quirks.

Elinor Karlsson, PhD

Wall Street Journal: UMMS study of canine DNA may yield discoveries to help people

Pet owners asked to report on their dogs’ behaviors, submit DNA samples

Sergey Venev and Konstantin Zeldovich artwork selected for the cover of Molecular Biology and Evolution (Volume 32Number6June 2015)

Cover Art Caption: A newly re-assorted influenza A virus reproducibly emerges from parental strains over time via reassortment. Artwork provided by Sergey Venev and Konstantin Zeldovich (Volume 32, pp. 1519-1532).

Jeffrey Bailey (back row, second from right) and ACCEL honored at Commencement

UMass Medical School Ebola fighters honored for lifesaving work in Liberia

Manuel Garber, PhD and Jeremy Luban, MD

UMMS receives $6.1 M to develop model for predicting gene expression in human dendritic cells.

Principal Investigators
Andres Colubri, Ph.D.
Manuel Garber, Ph.D.
Elinor Karlsson, Ph.D.
Teng-Ting (Elaine) Lim, Ph.D.
Zhiping Weng, Ph.D.

Research Faculty

Alper Kucukural, Ph.D.

Senior Software Engineer
Nathan Novod

Postdoctoral Fellows
Kathryn Lord, Ph.D.
Artur Manukyan, Ph.D.
Pranitha Vangala, Ph.D.

Bioinformaticians
Jill Moore, Ph.D.
Nishigandha Phalke
Onur Yukselen

Research Associates
Mannix Burns

Lab Technicians
Brittney Logan

Graduate Students
Greg Andrews
Tyler Borrman
Yuming Cao
Gaurav Chauhan
Kaili Fan
Mingshi Gao
Kyle (Jake) Gellatly
Jack Huey
Xue (Shirley) Li
Kathleen Morrill
Henry Pratt
Thomas Reimonn

Visiting Scholars