World-wide research in molecular biology is producing large amounts of data that stand in need of computerised analysis. The data is of several types: not only sequence data of DNA and of proteins, such as that provided by the Human Genome Initiative, but also the three-dimensional structures of some proteins, and other types of data, such as the simultaneous levels of activity of large numbers of genes, and data on the binding affinities of many antibodies to many substances.

This new wealth and variety of data contains the answers to many scientific questions and the keys to many medical advances. But to answer the new types of question that are being asked, new computational techniques are needed, and machine learning is a field that is providing some of the answers. Within the last four years, techniques from machine learning have become standard methods in computational biology.

Current Research

We are involved in a variety of different areas within Bioinformatics including gene prediction, Protein-DNA interactions, reconstructing Biological networks from transcriptomic data and identifying markers in human serum using proteomic data. In particular, we are adapting machine learning and other methods developed in the Department in this area.

Research Opportunities

This is a new and exciting area of research and we are looking for postgraduate students to work with us. We have an active PhD community and the MSc in Computer Science by Research includes a Bioinformatics Strand.

Bioinformatics resources and tools developed at Royal Holloway

• Plant promotor and gene prediction
• HTHquery - a method for detecting DNA binding proteins with a HTH motif