NIH establishes new Bioinformatics Center

NIH establishes new Bioinformatics Center

Recognizing the growing importance of computational and information sciences to biology, the National Institutes of Health is establishing a new Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (CBCB). The new center is designed to support research and training in areas that merge biology with computer sciences, engineering, mathematics, and physics.

The new center will be co-located with the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and will focus on developing and coordinating bioinformatics programs within NIGMS. The new center will coordinate the Biomedical Information Science and Technology Initiative

Consortium (BISTIC), a committee comprised of senior representatives from each of the NIH institutes and centers as well as representatives from other federal agencies that have interest in the field. CBCB will also fund training and fellowship grants and sponsor workshops, courses, and meetings. The first awards in a pre-doctoral training program in bioinformatics and computational biology will be announced shortly and a post-doctoral training program will be announced next year.

CBCB's birth comes quickly after the creation of a totally new NIH body - the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). NIBIB's mission is to centralize and coordinate fundamental research applying engineering and imaging science to biological processes, disorders, and diseases. Proposed FY2002 funding for NIBIB is $40.2 million. Last month, Donna J. Dean was named the NIBIB's acting director while the search for a permanent director takes place. For the past three years, Dean has been a senior scientific advisor in the NIH director's office.

NIH invests heavily in bioimaging and bioengineering research. In FY1999, predating NIBIB, NIH awarded about $447 million for bioimaging research and about $697 million for bioengineering research through all the various institutes and centers. NIBIB's support of basic and crosscutting research in the bioengineering and imaging sciences is not expected to curtail relevant activity in other institutes and centers.

Source: The Scientist 15[15]:11, Jul. 23, 2001