Bioinformatics Group Collaborate with the Center for Macular Degeneration

Medical Education Building and Research Facility

The Center for Macular Degeneration was founded on an interdisciplinary philosophy with a goal of using expert knowledge to try to solve the mystery of age-related vision loss. Among the collaborators in this team approach are three faculty colleagues in bioinformatics and computational biology: Todd Scheetz, PhD, Terry A. Braun, PhD, and Thomas A. Casavant, PhD.

Thomas L. Casavant, PhD.

Professor Casavant directs the UI Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and Electrical and Computer Engineering's Parallel Processing Laboratory. He is also a member of the Coordinated Laboratory for Computational Genomics, the Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the PhD Program in Genetics. Since 1996, Dr. Casavant has led computational molecular biology efforts in gene discovery, mapping, and disease gene identification and isolation. He has been active in the Human Genome Project and has developed system tools for computational molecular biology, gene discovery, mapping, and disease identification. These tools include two tools for the management and analysis of genetic linkage data, and numerous programs for gene discovery and novelty analysis. He has published extensively with over 70 papers on parallel processing and distributed computing, as well as genomics.
(source: Tom Casavant's Home page at http://www.eng.uiowa.edu/~tomc, accessed December 6, 2002.)

Terry A. Braun, PhD.

Dr. Braun is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, and is the Director of the Coordinated Laboratory for Computational Genomics. He holds a Masters Degree from the University of Iowa in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a PhD from the University of Iowa in Genetics. His PhD thesis was "A software tool architecture to assist disease gene identification." His thesis advisors were Thomas L. Casavant and Val C. Sheffield. His research interests include genomic analysis for mutation identification, applying computational methods to search genomic sequence to identify candidate disease genes and novel sequence characteristics, and disease gene identification.

Todd Scheetz, PhD.

Dr. Scheetz is a Senior Computational Scientist for the Coordinated Laboratory for Computational Genomics and an Associate with the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. He also holds a joint appointment with Biomedical Engineering. He earned a Masters Degree from the University of Iowa in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a PhD from the University of Iowa in Genetics. For his PhD Thesis, he was mentored by Drs. Thomas Casavant, M. Bento Soares, and Val Sheffield working on an NIH-funded project aimed at developing new resources for the laboratory rat. During this time, he created chromosome-spanning genetic framework maps. He has also created comparative maps between rat and mouse, and between rat and human, identifying 50 syntenic segments between rat and mouse, and 132 between rat and human. Since receiving his PhD in May 2001, he has worked on a variety of gene discovery, annotation, and expression analysis research projects.

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Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, directed by Thomas Casavant, PhD.
The Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology aims to catalyze the development of new areas of study and expanded research opportunities in informatics areas related to the basic biological science, and applied medical research. It is affiliated with the Center for Macular Degeneration directed by Edwin Stone, MD, PhD, the Coordinated Laboratory for Computational Genomics, directed by Terry Braun, PhD, the Roy J. Carver Center for Comparative Genomincs, directed by William Ballard, MD and the Diabetes-Endocrinology Research Center.

Coordinated Laboratory for Computational Genomics, headed by Terry Braun, PhD.

"Together, we have a vision for the future"