December 4, 2009 — Moncton, New Brunswick
Senator Percy Mockler, on behalf of the Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology), today announced the opening of a new bioinformatics laboratory that will create new technologies to assist health-care providers in diagnosing and treating diseases more quickly and accurately. The laboratory is a joint initiative among the National Research Council (NRC), l'Université de Moncton (UdeM), the Atlantic Cancer Research Institute (ACRI) and the University of New Brunswick (UNB).
"Our government supports science and technology because they improve the quality of life for Canadians, create jobs and strengthen the economy," said Senator Mockler. "This new research lab at the Université de Moncton will bring important health care and economic benefits for New Brunswickers, and for people around the world."
"Collaborative research projects such as this increase the competitiveness of a region, creating a dynamic location where companies, government, and universities can network, invest and bring innovative technologies to market," said NRC President Dr. Pierre Coulombe. "This will result in new knowledge, new skills, new partnerships and new business opportunities focused on the priorities of Canadians."
The Bioinformatics Lab is a key piece of high-tech infrastructure that will expand health and wellness research and development capabilities in the region. Bioinformatics is a scientific field in which information technology, computer science, mathematics, molecular biology and medicine emerge into a single discipline to analyze biological information. It plays a vital role in making sense of large amounts of data very quickly.
With state-of-the-art tools, the Bioinformatics Lab will support the research and development of new data analysis, data mining, and knowledge discovery techniques to meet challenges in the growing field of bioinformatics. The laboratory will attract skilled researchers to New Brunswick and offer new research opportunities to students in science, engineering and computer science. To support this project, NRC will be providing workstations and software technologies for researchers and partners to use for projects in bioinformatics.
The tools available at the lab can be used not only in health research, but for energy and the environment and wherever there is a need to process a large amount of data or perform multi-criteria processing.
Recognized globally for research and innovation, Canada's National Research Council (NRC) is a leader in the development of an innovative, knowledge-based economy for Canada through science and technology. NRC operates world-class research facilities as well as information, technology and innovation support networks from coast to coast.
The NRC Institute for Information Technology (NRC-IIT) conducts scientific research, develops technology, creates knowledge and supports innovation, and operates facilities in four Canadian cities: Fredericton, Moncton, Gatineau and Ottawa.
The National Research Council of Canada Institute for Information Technology (NRC-IIT) is opening, in collaboration with l'Université de Moncton (UdeM), the Atlantic Cancer Research Institute (ACRI), and the University of New Brunswick (UNB), a bioinformatics laboratory to expand the Health and Wellness Research and Development capabilities in the region.
Bioinformatics is the application of information technology to the field of molecular biology. The primary goal of bioinformatics is to increase our understanding of biological processes, especially when there is a large amount of data to process or many criteria to take into consideration. What sets it apart from other approaches, however, is its focus on developing and applying computationally intensive techniques (for example: data mining and machine learning algorithms) to achieve this goal.
Current projections by research organizations such as Gartner Dataquest and Adventis suggest that health care systems powered by bioinformatics technology all over the world are and will continue to be a driving engine for improving population health over the next decade.
A recent investigation of the existing bioinformatics resources in Atlantic Canada, with special focus on New Brunswick, suggests that the bioinformatics field is beginning to emerge. As well, NRC-IIT recently completed a survey that showed there is a growing cluster in information and communication technology (ICT) health research in New Brunswick.
Thus it is expected that bioinformatics companies and university programs will continue to increase and expand in the area in the near future.
An aging population, rising costs, and multiple other factors are combining to create issues in health care management. The future effectiveness and sustainability of health services for Canadians will rely extensively on information technologies. With this announcement, the Government of Canada increases research capacity in the critical area of health through investment in health ICT infrastructure.
The bioinformatics laboratory provides a unique opportunity for NRC to leverage world-leading bioinformatics expertise; by supporting efforts and resources (funds, projects, and teams of researchers), NRC will help the cluster partners spearhead research in bioinformatics and will intensify its support for cutting-edge technologies.
The Bioinformatics Lab is both a physical, virtual and online lab that is a collaborative effort among core partners: NRC-IIT, UdeM, the Atlantic Cancer Research Institute (ACRI), and the University of New Brunswick (UNB). The lab represents an opportunity to enhance bioinformatics research and training in Atlantic Canada and prepares the ground for the future of health systems in the cluster.
The lab offers state-of-the-art tools for the research and development of new data analysis, data mining, and knowledge discovery techniques to meet challenges in the growing field of bioinformatics.
The Bioinformatics Lab undertakes research and develops technology and services in four key areas:
- Bioinformatics
Found at the crossroads of information technology, computer science, mathematics, molecular biology, and medicine, the field of bioinformatics provides means to understand, analyze, and solve formal and practical problems arising from biological and medical data. The bioinformatics lab will focus activities in bioinformatics including the mapping, analysis and visualization of bio molecules, the development of comparative genomics and computational evolutionary biology applications, gene expression and mutations analysis, and web services for bioinformatics training.
- Bioengineering
As a key area, bioengineering requires new, efficient biosensors to supplement medical knowledge and create direct and meaningful developments in current and future health systems. Innovative microarray design and evaluation technologies are currently being developed in the lab to close the gap between experimental results and their biological/medical interpretation.
- Computational Biology
The generation of massive quantities of data in computational biology requires research into high-performance data mining with the aid of a reliable local computational infrastructure. The design and development of algorithms that enhance the understanding of biological processes is a key aspect of the work done in the lab in this field.
- Health Informatics
Research into new software systems will help develop efficient information and communication systems for patient data, fulfilling this need in health informatics.
On top of the much needed resources that the lab offers; world-renowned expertise in support of collaborative research with private sector companies will give SMEs in this field a competitive edge.
The tools developed in the lab can be used not only in health research but for energy and the environment as well. Wherever there is a need to process a large amount of data or do multi-criteria processing, this lab will be equipped to meet those demands.
