The Bioinformatics Core supports students, faculty, and researchers throughout the state and region with computational educational, training, platforms, and services related to biomedical research.
A primary focus of the Bioinformatics Core is support for the joint UALR/UAMS Graduate Program in Bioinformatics . The graduate program began officially in 2004 as a direct result of funding by the AR INBRE and offers both Master’s and Doctorate degrees in Bioinformatics.
The Bioinformatics Core supports activities of the MidSouth Bioinformatics Center at UALR (MBC). Students, faculty, and researchers can make use of the consulting services, computational resources, skills workshops, reference library, and online knowledge base provided by the MBC. Workshops on Linux bash scripting, Galaxy platform for bioinformatics, R statistical analysis and machine learning/AI are regular offerings. Many bioinformatics graduate students have assistantships working in the MBC, some of which are sponsored by the Arkansas INBRE, the UALR Donaghey College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, and the UAMS College of Medicine.
The MBC through the Bioinformatics Core provides technical and strategic support to the MidSouth Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Society (MCBIOS), a regional society founded by UALR professor, Dr. Steve Jennings. This includes website services, maintaining listservs, and facilitating the attendance at the annual MCBIOS conference by Arkansas students and faculty.
Additionally, the Bioinformatics Core supports the bioinformatics research efforts of the undergraduate faculty researchers sponsored by the Arkansas INBRE.
A grant supplement was awarded to AR INBRE to enhance data science capabilities in the Arkansas. As part of this mechanism, the Bioinformatics Core has developed both hardware and software resources for education and research purposes. Opportunities include:
- Cloud computing: On demand access with CPU and GPU components and Jupyter Notebooks for data pipelines
- Training modules: NIGMS Sandbox
- BigOmics Analytics: software for analyzing omics data that includes differential expression as well as pathways and functional analyses
- A new Help Desk for Data Science-related questions.
Contact information:
Contact Drs. Elizabeth Pierce or Mary Yang for more information regarding the joint UALR/UAMS Graduate Program in Bioinformatics.
Contact Dr. Galina Glazko for consulting services and tools for the analysis, integration and interpretation of large-scale biological “omics” data.
Bioinformatics Core
Co-Director
(501) 683-7056 | Email
Bioinformatics Core
(501) 916-5243 | Email
Bioinformatics Core
Co-Director
(501) 603-1758 | Email
updated 10/22/2024