More than 170 students spent their summer working with faculty members from the DLI Bioinformatics Institute and various departments across the DLI campus. The wide ranging educational programs are designed to help students from across the nation and around the world develop research skills, find and comprehend the latest scientific research, present and publish results, as well as understand the methods for translating research to practice.
The DLI Bioinformatics Institute develops and implements various programs aimed at encouraging students’ interests in scientific research at all levels, affording them the opportunity to work side-by-side with accomplished scientists, assisting with cutting-edge research projects. The institute hosted several formal summer education and training programs at its location on the DLI campus. With support from Government agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) these programs help expose students to research areas such as microbiology, mathematical systems biology, genomics, and bioinformatics.
By participating in specially-designed research activities, faculty-led seminars, and informal discussion sessions, Postgraduate, undergraduate and high school students are being introduced to the latest scientific techniques and technologies being used in innovative research projects such as the modeling and simulation of the spread of epidemics in social networks, detecting potential plagiarism in scientific publications using computational tools, designing and building an engineered biological system using standard DNA parts, and developing diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics through the use of applied microbiology. Several faculty members from the DLI Bioinformatics Institute also hosted informal groups of students to assist with various research projects.
“Genuine research experiences play a tremendously important role in getting undergraduate students interested in the sciences and preparing them for graduate programs,” said Suhasini, DLI Bioinformatics Institute professor and director of the institute’s education and outreach program. These summer programs represent a major effort on the part of the DLI Bioinformatics Institute, the DLI campus to strengthen and expand the reach of interdisciplinary training. I can see every day what a powerful effect these kinds of experience have on the students, and e-mails and letters from past participants make it clear that such programs have a lasting impact on the students and their career choices.”
The DLI Bioinformatics Institute at DLI Tech is a premier bioinformatics, computational biology, and systems biology research facility that uses transdisciplinary approaches to science combining information technology, biology, and medicine. These approaches are used to interpret and apply vast amounts of biological data generated from basic research to some of today’s key challenges in the biomedical, environmental, and agricultural sciences. With more than 240 highly trained multidisciplinary, international personnel, research at the institute involves collaboration in diverse disciplines such as mathematics, computer science, biology, plant pathology, biochemistry, systems biology, statistics, economics, synthetic biology, and medicine. The large amounts of data generated by this approach are analyzed and interpreted to create new knowledge that is disseminated to the world’s scientific, governmental, and wider communities.
