2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001


|| December 29, 2003 ||
New fellows showcase emerging systems biology research at Center for the Study of Biological Complexity's first Research Review. Using math to understand and model what goes on in cells; applying new statistical approaches to mine vast, new genomic data sets; developing novel computational strategies to find potential vaccines for agents of biological terrorism; and applying neural nets to define genetic pathways. Read Press Release Here  

|| November 25, 2003 ||
John Frasier, USAF Research Lab, visits CSBC. Members and fellows of the Center for the Study of Biological Complexity attend Frasier's seminar, "Cell-Like Entities - The Biological Equivalent of the Transistor" on the CLE program and its purpose. Read More Here  

|| November 21, 2003 ||
VCU JOINS $350 MILLION BIOTERRORISM STUDY University to sequence genome of key organism in deadly viruses, Virginia Commonwealth University has been selected to join a national consortium of biomedical research institutions established by the United States Department of Health and Human Services to help combat bioterrorism. Read Press Release Here  |  Read Richmond.com News Here

|| August 18, 2003 ||
Danail Bonchev, Complexity Biologist in Residence, arrives for a six month visiting fellowship on Sept. 1. Dr. Bonchev's interests include biological complexity, proteomics, networks, theoretical chemistry (mathematical chemistry, molecular topology, complexity, quantum chemistry, chemical kinetics) and its applications to the development of new polymers, drugs, and other biologically active compounds. Dr. Bonchev's office will be on the third floor of the Trani Center. Dr. Bonchev was recently appointed External Fellow of the CSBC (Spring, 2003).

|| August 18, 2003 ||
Planning for Fall CSBC Research Retreat. Planning for Fall CSBC Research Retreat. Plans are moving forward for the fall research retreat. As discussed in our Spring meeting, plans are for a 1 day meeting near the end of the Fall semester (Finals week or the week after). Please mark your calendars. Also, please let us know if you can assist in the organization of the meeting.

|| August 15, 2003 ||
Paul Fawcett joins the CSBC from Pat Brown's Lab at Stanford University. Paul studies microbial systems and host response using custom micro-arrays. He will also participate in development of the new MS/BS in Bioinformatics. Paul was recruited in partnership with the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases. His office/labs are on the fifth floor of Sanger Hall, not for from the Nucleic Acids Research Facilities.

|| August 15, 2003 ||
Zhongming Zhao joins the CSBC from the University of Texas and the Keck Center for Computational and Structural Biology. The Center for the Study of Biological Complexity welcomes Zhongming Zhao as CSBC fellow and professor in VCU's Department of Psychiatry. Zhao comes to us with a Ph.D in Human Genetics and Masters Degrees in Computer Science, Biomathematics, and Genetics.

|| August 13, 2003 ||
SCHEV Approves VCU Life Sciences as an Academic Unit, First Academic Degree Program-Ph.D. in Integrative Life Sciences /CSBC Formally Approved as Center The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) has approved the transformation of Virginia Commonwealth University Life Sciences into a formal academic and instructional unit, and a proposal for its first academic degree program – a Ph.D. program in Integrative Life Sciences. “The approval of VCU Life Sciences as a new formal academic unit within the University represents the realization of the VCU Strategic Plan to play a national role in the Life Sciences revolution of the 21st century,” said VCU President Read More Here.

|| August 13, 2003 ||
CSBC Senior Fellow Don Mikulecky's paper given at the New England Institute's 2nd International Conference The latest paper by Dr. Steve Kercel, University of New England and Dr. Don Mikulecky, VCU was presented at The New England Institute's 2nd International Conference: Religion, Cognitive Science, and Evolutionary Psychology. Dr. Mikulecky has posted the talk and paper on his website, where you may also download a powerpoint version.

|| August 13, 2003 ||
BS/MS in Bioinformatics moves through University approval process. Our very complex and comprehensive proposal for a BS/MS Program in Bioinformatics passed two large hurdles in the University Undergraduate Course Committee and the University Graduate Council Course Committee in late Spring. This has the effect that the program is moving through higher-level administration during the summer and will go to SCHEV for approval this fall. It also has the effect that the courses are approved and are now listed in the Undergraduate and Graduate Catalogs under VCU Life Sciences (as BNFO courses).

|| August 12, 2003 ||
NIH ImageJ added to Bioinformatics Computational Core Laboratories Software Capabilities. The BCCL has now added Image J to its software capabilities. *ImageJ* is a public domain Java image processing program inspired by NIH Image for the Macintosh. It runs, either as an online applet or as a downloadable application, on any computer with a Java 1.1 or later virtual machine. Downloadable distributions are available for Windows, Mac OS, Mac OSX and Linux. It can display, edit, analyze, process Read More Here.

|| August 8, 2003 ||
Summer Institute (BBSI) Successful. 14 students (mostly rising juniors) from across the country successfully completed the first summer stage of the NSF/NIH-funded VCU Bioinformatics and Bioengineering Summer Institute. Students were on campus for 10 weeks, did research in 14 faculty labs, and learned the basics in broad-brush strokes of Bioinformatics and Bioengineering. We sponsored seven (7) external seminar speakers. Students presented the results of their summer research in a symposium on Aug. 7 in the Engineering Building. They will continue to work with mentors at their home institutions and VCU throughout the upcoming academic year, and return for the culminating summer in 2004. A second class of BBSI students will be recruited for the upcoming summer. Jeff Elhai, Director of the BBSI, and all the participating faculty did a great job.

|| August 2, 2003 ||
CSBC to Collaborate with NIH. The Center for the Study of Biological Complexity is pleased to announce that it is developing a collaborative relationship with the National Institutes of Health, Biomedical Computing Interest Group (BCIG). The mission of the NIH BCIG is to encourage, support and promote good and appropriate computing methodology and technology in all aspects of biomedical research, development, and patient care and technology sharing in support of the overall NIH mission. Read More Here.

|| June 20, 2003 ||
Two-Day Symposium in Biomedical Computing "Digital Biology: The Emerging Paradigm," a symposium in biomedical computing, will take place November 6-7, 2003, in the Natcher Conference Center on the main NIH campus. This symposium has been organized by the NIH Biomedical Information Science and Technology Initiative (BISTI) Consortium. The symposium will offer a broad Read More Here.

|| June 16, 2003 ||
Students Begin Summer Program Aimed at Luring Them to Life Sciences Careers. Fourteen students from colleges and universities across the country have started classes at Virginia Commonwealth University as part of a two-year summer institute aimed at encouraging more young adults to pursue careers in bioinformatics and bioengineering. Read More Here.

|| April 29, 2003 ||
Dr. Daniel Bonchev to give seminar, "Quantifying Biological Complexity." Dr. Danail Bonchev will visit the CSBC on Tuesday & Wednesday, April
29-30, and talk on the methods of assessing complexity in biology and ecology, based on topology, information theory and complexity theory. Read More Here.

|| March 10 & 11, 2003 ||
VCU Libraries Presents: A Field Guide to GenBank and NCBI Molecular
Biology Resources. This lecture and hands-on computer workshop on GenBank and related databases covers the effective use of the Entrez databases and search service, the BLAST similarity search engine, genome data, and other related resources. Read More Here.

|| January 30, 2003 ||
VCU Receives Grant for Summer Program to Encourage Students to Seek Biomedical Careers. Virginia Commonwealth University has started recruiting students for a new summer institute that will launch June 1. Funded by a $660,000, four-year grant from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, the institute is aimed at encouraging more young adults to pursue careers in bioengineering and bioinformatics. Read More Here.

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Date last modified: 10/27/04
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