Genome Informatics
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Brendel Group @ ISU: Research Interests

Our main research focus is currently in plant genomics and molecular genetics. On the genomic scale, we try to understand what the functional units are in a genome (identification of protein-coding genes; organization of transposable elements and other repetitive sequences), how their expression is controlled, and how they may have come to be where and what they are (comparative genomics, molecular phylogeny). On the molecular scale, we are particularly interested in process of pre-mRNA splicing (identification of splice sites and characterization of splicing factors).

We approach our research using a combination of computational and experimental approaches. Typically, we start with a biological question, then derive a statistical model for evaluation of the data and develop algorithms and software to crunch the data for the study. A key aspect to this approach is efficient data management, and thus we devote much of our efforts to the development of bioinformatics databases and data management tools.

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