You are cordially invited to next Wednesday's IIC Colloquium, to be given by Daniel Janies of Ohio State University. *********************** Large-Scale Visualization of Emergent Infectious Diseases April 28, 2010, 4:00 pm Room G-115, Maxwell Dworkin, 33 Oxford Street, Cambridge Daniel Janies, Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics, The Ohio State University Abstract Emerging infectious diseases are critical issues for public health. Rapid genomic sequencing, used in response to SARS and pandemic influenza, has become a primary method of diagnosing agents of infectious disease. In order to understand epidemics, however, one must incorporate more information. Sequence alignment and phylogenetics are fundamental tools for making sense of sequence data from emergent pathogens, enabling comparison to well-characterized pathogens. Both tools require significant computational equipment and user expertise. Janies’ group has developed web-based applications (e.g., http://supramap.osu.edu) that marry parallel sequence alignment and tree search with geographic visualization of the spread of pathogens and their genotypes and phenotypes. These applications reduce the expertise and nearly eliminate the computational equipment required for individuals to use sequence alignment and phylogenetics. They allow users to analyze large datasets of raw genetic sequence and phenotypes from pathogens and hosts in a geographic context, fostering interactions among diverse disciplines by providing a common framework for hypothesis generation and testing. Janies will discuss several multidisciplinary use cases, including analyses of host adaptation and drug resistance over space and time. About the Speaker Daniel Janies is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at The Ohio State University. He teaches computational analysis of genomic information for biomedical research and won an award for excellence in teaching and research at Ohio State in 2007. Dr. Janies' current research concerns the global spread of emergent infectious diseases. His work involves the development of software to map the spread of agents of infectious disease based on genomic and geographic data. The results are akin to weather maps for disease that allow public health scientists to visualize when and where pathogens jump from animals to humans and evolve to resist drugs. Dr. Janies' work has been the subject of local, national, and international press coverage. He was recently called to testify to the United States Senate and has advised the Pentagon, The White House Office of Medical Preparedness, and the United States Department of State on methods for disease surveillance. __________ Refreshments served at 3:45 pm __________ Mark your calendar for these upcoming talks: Monday, Apr. 26: SciGPU Seminar (noon, MD 323), Alice Quillen, University of Rochester Wednesday, May 5: Final IIC Colloquium, Jeannette M. Wing, National Science Foundation For more information about IIC colloquia and other events : http://iic.harvard.edu/events/upcoming _______________________________________________ iic-colloquium mailing list iic-colloquium(a)seas.harvard.edu https://lists.deas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/iic-colloquium