Department of Energy announces $4.7 million for research on integrative computational tools for systems biology research

Projects will develop new ways to manage and use growing datasets

2023-08-07

(Press-News.org) WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $4.7 million in funding for five new research projects in computational biology. These projects will develop new software and analytical tools to manage the growing quantities of genomics and other data stemming from the study of microbes and other biological systems.

“The Biological and Environmental Research (BER) Genomic Science program is at the forefront of using genome-enabled approaches to identify the basic principles that drive biological systems underlying functional processes of organisms,” said Todd Anderson, DOE Acting Associate Director for BER. “To gain insight into the innerworkings of these organisms and their biological systems so we can better understand and utilize them for beneficial purposes, we need to develop advanced computational approaches that connect these tremendously large and diverse data sets along with their data structures and procedures.”

BER’s Genomic Science Program supports fundamental systems biology research on microbial and plant systems to fully understand how plants, microbes and their communities transform and are transformed by the environment, drive the Earth’s biogeochemical cycles, can be harnessed to improve the environment, and provide sustainable routes for energy production and security. This requires a multiscale understanding of biological functions from molecular to ecological scale and can produce vast quantities of data. These projects will help tease out information from that data through new computational approaches.

The projects were selected by competitive peer review under the DOE Funding Opportunity Announcement for Integrative Computational Tools for Systems Biology Research.

Total funding is $4.7 million for projects lasting up to 3 years in duration, with $4.7 million in Fiscal Year 2023 dollars. The list of projects and more information can be found on the BER homepage.

Selection for award negotiations is not a commitment by DOE to issue an award or provide funding. Before funding is issued, DOE and the applicants will undergo a negotiation process, and DOE may cancel negotiations and rescind the selection for any reason during that time.   

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